Queen Victoria Diamond Jubilee - 1897

brg5658 · April 14, 2016 10:35AM

I have been relatively quiet this year so far with new purchases, but I picked up a new Queen Victoria silver medal this week from Atlas Numismatics. Of the 90+ silver medals commemorating the Diamond Jubilee (60th anniversary of reign) and indexed in Laurence Brown's British Historical Medals (volume 2), this is one of only 3 listed as RR (very rare, approximate mintage of 30-50 pieces). The relief on this medal in hand is just unreal -- I have no idea how many blows were required to strike it up fully on a medal press, but it is impressive. This is indexed by Brown as BHM-3535, and is indexed by Whittlestone & Ewing as #3062. Thanks to rwyarmch for his help in looking up some of the information on this medal in Brown's book.

The description from Atlas:

GREAT BRITAIN. Victoria. (Queen, 1837-1901). 1897 AR Medal. PCGS SP64+. By J. Carter. 45mm. VICTORIA D:G:BRITANNIARVM REGINA F:D: INDIAE IMPERATRIX. Crowned, veiled, draped bust left; with legends on a wide raised border around / XX JVN. MDCCCXCVII/ IMPERIUM INIVIT / XX JVN. MDCCCXXXVII (20 June 1897; She began her reign 20 June 1837). Angel, seated left, holding trumpet aloft and pointing toward a shield inscribed LX which rests against a tree. Cornucopia to right of angel, steam engine and masted ship in distance, date in Roman numerals and legend on three lines below.

**Note that in the picture above (formatted to my template) I have desaturated the PCGS CoinFacts images, and decreased the red-hue so that they more accurately represent the medal in hand. I find that TrueView / CoinFacts images are consistently oversaturated and red-shifted in hue.