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San Francisco Samuel Bridge School Medal
WillieBoyd2
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I received this interesting item recently, it is a San Francisco Schools Samuel Bridge medal in bronze:
Samuel Bridge Medal - Bronze
The Samuel Bridge silver medals were awarded to the top male students of San Francisco grammar schools from 1879 to 1915.
A similar medal, the Denman silver medal, was awarded to the top female students from 1865 to 1915
The medals were originally struck at the US Philadelphia Mint and later at other places.
The bronze medal was not awarded to a student as only silver medals were awarded. The newspapers at the time usually listed medal awardees in articles on school graduations.
A regular Samuel Bridge silver medal:
Samuel Bridge Medal awarded to Frank O'Donnell in 1895
Silver, 34mm, 18.75gm
The man who sold the bronze medal to me told me he bought it from a coin dealer in Brookfield, Massachusetts.
The bronze medal has no year or inscribed awardee name.
My guess is that it probably was a mint trial piece or pattern.
Is there something else that it could have been?
Samuel Bridge Medal - Bronze
The Samuel Bridge silver medals were awarded to the top male students of San Francisco grammar schools from 1879 to 1915.
A similar medal, the Denman silver medal, was awarded to the top female students from 1865 to 1915
The medals were originally struck at the US Philadelphia Mint and later at other places.
The bronze medal was not awarded to a student as only silver medals were awarded. The newspapers at the time usually listed medal awardees in articles on school graduations.
A regular Samuel Bridge silver medal:
Samuel Bridge Medal awarded to Frank O'Donnell in 1895
Silver, 34mm, 18.75gm
The man who sold the bronze medal to me told me he bought it from a coin dealer in Brookfield, Massachusetts.
The bronze medal has no year or inscribed awardee name.
My guess is that it probably was a mint trial piece or pattern.
Is there something else that it could have been?
https://www.brianrxm.com
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I did a quick search and found these other threads:
- Who is Samuel J. Bridge and why did he give a medal to Frank O'Donnell?
- San Francisco Schools Samuel Bridge Medal awarded to Frank O'Donnell in 1895
- The John Roland Calder Story, awarded the San Francisco Bridge Medal in 1908
The inception of the fund is documented in the public schools annual report in 1879 with a donation of $2000 in gold:
- Annual Report of the Superintendent of Public Schools for the School Year Ending June 30, 1879, page 310
It seems like was a permanent fund. I wonder if it was discontinued due to the war or some other reason. In 1897 there seems to have been an attempt to liquidate the Samuel Bridge Medal Fund (which had grown to $3000 by that time) due to the following in the San Francisco Call:
It is expected that the Denraan medal fund of $3000 and the Bridge medal fund of $3000 will be made a part of the annuity fund, as they are no longer used for their original purpose, owing to the fact that the awarding of medals to pupils engendered jealousy and ill-feelings.
I love the mahogany look of 19th century medals.
+1
The bronze medal has no year
Of note, the bronze piece has the 1891 specimen reverse, and not the reverses of the 1895 or 1908 specimens, which themselves are different.
As noted by Zoins, the reverses in the OP are quite a bit different. Oddly, the reverse of the copper specimen is the "normal" one for this medal. I have silver specimens dated 1891, 1894, and 1905, and two undated versions, all with reverses that match the copper version here.
I have no sale records for another specimen in copper, and this is the first I've seen. Julian does list this medal as having been struck in copper, although only in the mintage summaries (bottom left of page 390) and not in the body of his text.
In general, I'm very reluctant to declare that any medal is a trial piece or pattern. Medals were regularly struck in many different compositions. I think we can agree that yours is copper rather than silver. As to why yours is copper rather than silver, that speaks to intent at the time of manufacture, and we have no information about intent.
In any case, nice pickup. Congrats!
use for the purchase of silver medals for distribution among the most meritorious boys of the Public Grammar Schools of San Francisco
[...]
whose duty it shall be to use such interest in the purchase of silver medals, which shall be distributed
Dang, your pics look a lot nicer than the ones in the eBay listing. I think it's more than simply better pictures -- there's less green on yours. This is one case where cleaning helped rather than hurt!
How did you conserve this piece?
I did not notice that the reverse banner had changed from 1891 to 1895 until now.
As to cleaning the medal:
The medal came with some green crud, mostly accumulated loose in the obverse ear.
I washed the medal in tap water, then used a soft wooden toothpick to clean out the crud.
Then I wiped the medal with a wet washrag, then rinsed it some more, then dried it off with a towel and let sit on a dry towel.
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It seems like the reverse of the bronze piece was also used for the 1905 Frank J Hansen specimen. Could it be that different issuers used different reverses? Or perhaps they just switched between common reverses?
Have you thought about collecting the Denman medal as well? It seems that these may have similar reverses as the one below shares a reverse with the bronze, 1891 and 1905 pieces.
I guess that the girls held on to them as they grew older.
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I located a Token and Medal Society (TAMS) article about the Denman Medals, "The Denman Grammar School Medals of San Francisco" by Michael Wehner, TAMS Journal September/October 2011, which had information on where the Bridge medals were struck.
The medals were first struck from 1879 to 1890 at the Philadelphia Mint. In 1890 the Mint stopped striking private medals and shipped the dies to San Francisco. From 1891 to 1906 they were struck at Albert Kuner's firm using these dies. Kuner died in early 1906 and later an earthquake destroyed his firm's shop, dies, and records. From 1907 to 1915 they were struck at Robert Schaezlein's firm using new dies he created.
The bronze medal could have been struck at the Philadelphia Mint or by Kuner in San Francisco to test the dies received from the Mint.
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If you were able to locate other bronze medals struck by Kuner, you could compare the surface finishes. And, if significantly different than many Kuner medals, you could probably be pretty confident that it was struck by the US Mint. As far as I can tell, the color and gloss are very similar to some of the finishes used at the Philadelphia Mint.