World War 1 Commemorative

claychaser

I previously suggested a Peace Dollar retro design. I also think an Alvin York obverse with the Peace Dollar eagle reverse would make sense.

If enough ideas are posted, I can set a poll for voting.

LindeDad

They did it in 1921.

BillJones

I don't think that war deserves to be commemorated at all. It was an atrocity and a prime example of the failure of diplomacy conducted by a bunch of old men who got a generation of young men killed and maimed. Following that war the old men botched it up again with a treaty that sowed the seeds for World War II.

At least World War II resulted in the defeat of the Axis and Japan. Both of those regimes deserved to be dumped in the dust bin of history.

ricko

I agree with Bill.... shoddy, incompetent diplomacy was at the root of the wars... much like

we are dealing with today...... When diplomats fail, good men die. Cheers, RickO

Jackthecat1

I agree that it was a horrible war that really didn't solve anything. Maybe show a soldier giving a drink from his canteen to a wounded man like the 1995 Civil War Commem Dollar? Any other design I could think of would be something gruesome like a pile of corpses wearing gas masks.

291fifth

The obverse of Lorado Taft's rejected 1935 Society of Medalists design might be appropriate. The design depicts a skeletal figure with arms outstretched holding wreaths of laurel over the heads of two soldiers pointing pistols at each other while diplomats stand close behind them. The medal is illustrated in the book "The Old Guard and the Avant-Garde Modernism in Chicago, 1910-1940", University of Chicago Press, 1990. The medal was never produced by anyone. The photos in the book are of the plasters.

ElKevvo

I have seen several European post war medals over the years and they as a group did not in anyway glorify the war...in fact they all had a similar theme of focusing on the horror of the war which was unlike anything the world had ever seen. Those type of medals seem to reflect more the thoughts of the participants once it was over and should be considered for a new commem. But...it's gotta sell so who knows. I would like to see a Peace Dollar based commem personally.



K

Zoins

I'm a big fan of WWI Victory Medals and they may be a good theme to commemorate. There are a lot of issues at the nation, state, city, and other levels. They also tend to have nice allegorical designs. While numismatists may be limited to HK listed medals, there are fairly advanced collectors of these coming from a military medal collector focus.

TopographicOceans

WWII was just WWI fought over again.