NEWP 1826 Erie Canal Medal in silver
Justacommeman
Posts: 22,852 ✭✭✭✭✭
America’s first public works medal stuck by means of a very powerful and well tuned screw press. Voted the 8th best medal amongst America’s Greatest Medals and Tokens it was high up my want list. There are about 20-30 known examples in silver.
I bought this in the recent Kagin auction. It has a nice lavender and pink hue and is graded 64 by NGC. I will be sending it to our hosts for crossing plus the holder is pretty hacked up. I think 64 is the right number due to some hairlines consistant for the grade .
mark
Walker Proof Digital Album
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
30
Comments
Excellent!
Bellissima!
RMR: 'Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?'
CJ: 'No one!' [Ain't no angels in the coin biz]
Wow! Nice choice, Mark. Stunning coin, wonderful design, great condition, and rare to boot!
Lance.
Congrats... Medals often are left out of the spotlight which seems to be changing as more appreciate them for what they are.
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
That is a nice one. Most that I have seen (in white metal ?) have been pretty beat up.
For sure, this is one of the most beautiful medals in our history. I was watching that one go!
Glad it's a part of the forum family now.
Dead Cat Waltz Exonumia
"Coin collecting for outcasts..."
Outstanding!
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CoinsAreFun Toned Silver Eagle Proof Album
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Gallery Mint Museum, Ron Landis& Joe Rust, The beginnings of the Golden Dollar
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More CoinsAreFun Pictorials NGC
Spectacular medal, Mark. Your enthusiasm might just be contagious. The toning on your Erie Canal really brings out the details.
OINK
That is a great one in pristine condition.
Sometimes, it’s better to be LUCKY than good. 🍀 🍺👍
My Full Walker Registry Set (1916-1947):
https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/16292/
Wow !!!
Great pick up
BHNC #203
That is a very nice specimen Mark.... The Erie Canal was a significant engineering feat in those times... and still today it is a historical site and interest. I read on a metal detecting forum, several years ago, that one of these was found along the canal...obviously not in that condition... but it was a unique find. Cheers, RickO
It’s a wonder this project ever got completed. There was tremendous opposition from the states involved
That find was amazing
m
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
Dude. Pan and Poseidon are yoked.
You see these in white metal more frequently but a nice high grade silver one looks so much nicer.
Congratulations on your new acquisition.
Congratulations. That is a special So-Called Dollar and your specimen looks quite nice.
I can't wait to see it in a PCGS slab and the TrueView.
MJ, great pickup! HK-1000, the Erie Canal Medal in silver is my favorite SCD. Charles Cushing Wright made some beautiful DIES.
Check out some of my 1794 Large Cents on www.coingallery.org
We live on the Erie canal extension, never realized they had a medal for the canal itself. Interesting. Hope it's at least 90% silver.
The whole worlds off its rocker, buy Gold™.
BOOMIN!™
Awesome!
My YouTube Channel
Well I had this medal reholdered as the plastic was pretty beat up. I think David McCarthy used it as a cheese board. Im glad I did. Now it will travel down the road to PCGS for crossing. ( I hope). If anyone from PCGS sees this thread please note the extra mile I went so the graders could see actually see what they were looking at.
New pics
mark
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
Extremely cool
Latin American Collection
Great piece!
We don't do medals like that anymore - by the time a group of people designs a medal, it turns "blah" to keep everyone happy and unoffended.
Keeps me looking for the great pieces from the past.
“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock." - Thomas Jefferson
My digital cameo album 1950-64 Cameos - take a look!
Nicer!
One of my favorite designs and a ""Sterling" example! (Well not quite
I'm glad you had it reholdered - when we picked up that consignment I was amazed at how ratty the plastic looked; unfortunately, there wasn't time to have it fixed. It was then - and only then - that I decided to use it as a cheese board....
What is now proved was once only imagined. - William Blake
Youre a Gouda man
m
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
Very nice. I love a piece that says EXCELSIOR. Que "Ride of the Valkerie" and invade a small country. Kidding about the invasion, just gets the blood pumping.
My brother in Wisconsin could have served on the cheese board, but he chose to serve on the bratwurst board instead!
There are some truly awesome medal designs! Id love to add a few to my collection, but way too many irons in the fire now to start a new project!
Nice buy!
"A dog breaks your heart only one time and that is when they pass on". Unknown
Neptunistic buy, I’m sure!
A: The year they spend more on their library than their coin collection.
A numismatist is judged more on the content of their library than the content of their cabinet.
I missed this the first time. That is an extremely nice example of a great medal.
Congratulations Mark.
Much Congrat's!!
nice medal, Mark.
I owned the HK-1 pictured on the cover of the 2nd Edition of the book "So-Called Dollars" but was forced to sell when the economy crashed in 2008-9. you probably realize that the reverse is the weaker of the two sides, quite low in relief compared to the obverse. I have never understood why the Eagle wasn't cut deeper but it is a nicely designed medal despite that shortcoming.
those who are interested in the medal itself should probably read up on the canal construction project and its ramifications on America's economic development. it is astounding what manual labor and American ingenuity accomplished!!! the day's Engineers created methods for doing things out of sheer necessity and overcame every manner of natural obstacle imaginable. though not on the scope of the Great Wall or the Great Pyramids it rivals anything done in the proceeding centuries.
we're planning a vacation this summer and I hope to post a thread with the relevant stops and SC$'s. the first stop will be the Erie Canal Museum in Buffalo, the Western terminus. the Canal part of the trip will end with a two-day stay in Albany, the Eastern terminus. there will be other fun things but I have always wanted to visit what is left of the old canal.
thanks for sharing your medal with us, it looks to be an exceptionally well preserved example.
Spectacular medal. I missed it the first go around.
I took these pics in the Queen City.
"If I say something in the woods and my wife isn't there to hear it.....am I still wrong?"
My Washington Quarter Registry set...in progress
There are some working locks in Lockport, NY that provide quite a bit of vertical drop, as the current canal comes down the Niagara Escarpment.
yes, Captain, that's where we're headed. the second stop will be the "Anchor Bar" where Buffalo Wings originated. my GF is a wing aficionado so that will be a treat for her.
There is a decent diner in downtown Lockport called Tom's, or at least there was in 2012. Check out the mural in the men's room!
I've always loved that eagle on the reverse. Nice piece.
The construction of the Erie Canal is probably why there are more different NY obsolete notes and scrip than any other state. The resulting settlements along the Hudson and Mohawk Valleys allowed any farmer within 10-20 miles of the canal to access markets all over the world. And the Hudson and Mohawk Valleys are full of fertile farmland.
The result was many new towns and cities and a huge increased need for money to fuel the economic expansion. Coins were only a small part of the dollar value needed, so most of the day to day economic needs were filled by bank issued currency and private merchant and city issued scrip.
Many coin collectors don't realize that from about 1800 until the Civil War, most of the money in terms of face value, by far, was bank issued paper money. Smaller banks typically had circulations in the hundreds of thousands of dollars while the larger ones circulated millions of dollars in paper money at any given time. The vast majority of it was issued, circulated a few years and then was replaced by newer designs. Eventually, most of this currency was redeemed and/or replaced with National Bank Notes. Contrary to popular belief, most of this currency did not become worthless, but, rather was redeemed and destroyed. That's why many of the notes that survive today are counterfeits, they were never redeemed and destroyed because they couldn't be. Genuine surviving notes are often unissued remainders, so the rare ones are genuine notes, properly signed and issued, from banks that survived and redeemed their notes, like the ones that became National Banks in the 1860s and 1870s.
Very cool
I'm a stones throw away from the canal, so feel free to send it back home at will. It belongs home...
Really! 
Very nice addition Mark, I really like the look of it.
Nice photo too.