Pan Am MacNeil medals-mintages
koynekwest
Posts: 10,048 ✭✭✭✭✭
For those who may be interested in mintages for this beautiful medal, here's the article and numbers. I have the bronze; the gentleman has a gold plated original example currently listed on ebay-# 322842213022. I wish I could afford it.
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Note that the newspaper promotes a date of 1903 for the St. Louis World's Fair. Apparently the opening of the fair was delayed until 1904.
I own one of these in bronze, as well, but it always seemed to me that they appear on the market far too infrequently to have been produced in such great numbers. Perhaps it is loss due to attrition or some other factor that has made them seem more scarce to me over the years.
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
Metal drives during WWI & WWII may have claimed many of them.
I believe both of you are correct-attrition has to be the answer. They do not appear very often. And it seems like the St Louis fair did open a year late. I don't know much about it in any case.
From what I have gathered it was the north american south american silver trade that lost a lot of the medals to south america
Welcome to the forums and enjoy @Newhere11.
Is anyone keeping a list of these? If not, should we create one here? Here are 2 gold specimens of the 887 awarded.
Gold: US: Eldgridge R. Johnson - NGC Uncirculated Details, Bent, Scratched
Awarded to Eldridge Reeves Johnson for Victor Talking Machines. One of the 601 gold medals award to the US.
This sold for $46,995 on Feb 24, 2017 in an auction by Rago Auctions.
Gold: Mexico: Compañia Cigarrera Mexicana - NGC MS63
Here's a gold award to Compania Cigarrera Mexicana. It's one of 78 gold specimens award to Mexico.
Those are gorgeous!
I have a Gilt Bronze awarded to Timothy E. McGarr, Secretary of the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene. Being from Buffalo (and of questionable sanity), I had to buy it...
What is now proved was once only imagined. - William Blake
Might be good if a record is kept. I have an NGC MS62 bronze. I've heard there are only two gold ones known, which has to be incorrect. I've seen 3 or 4 for sale in the last five years or so.
That's a good reason for buying one, Regulated!
We have gilt Bronze example in NGC MS67 coming up at the ANA sale.
What is now proved was once only imagined. - William Blake
I'll track that one. Who's selling it?
Here are some more:
Silver: US: The Green Fuel Economizer Co.
The silver award to the Green Fuel Economizer Company is currently available on the bay. You can find some information on this company at the Smithsonian Institute's site on American History. It's one of the 663 awarded to the US and 1,159 awarded in total. Here's the description from Langham Rare Coins:
This appears to be the one mentioned by @koynekwest in the OP as the "gold plated original example" but the title and description do not mention it is gold plated.
Bronze (Gilt): US: J.A. Roebling's Sons Co. - Wire Cables
John Augustus Roebling (born Johann August Röbling) was the designer of the Brooklyn Bridge and founded his steel wire manufacturing company in 1849.
Bronze (Gilt): US: The American Tool & Machine Co.
It's been my experience that these are all pretty scarce. If I had to guess--after watching closely and doing what research I could online over the last few years--my gut says as few as 75 to maybe a couple hundred exist over all metals and in all states of preservation. Maybe 10% of the published totals indicated by @koynekwest above. Perhaps a few less of the "gold", which I'm fairly certain represent gilt medals and not solid 24k gold medals. Far fewer "uncirculated" examples exist in any metal.
I hypothesized here a couple years back that the scarcity of the bronze medals--which literally indicate "BRONZE" on the edge, might be the result of their being a logical and patriotic offering for WWI and WWII scrap metal drives. Since then, I've noticed that the few silver medals I've found seemed to be cleaned (read polished). Not surprising when you consider that these were awarded to a decidedly non-numismatic population, where they likely stayed for decades as named family heirlooms, and whose response to the silver medals tarnishing over time (which they clearly did) was likely to polish them at a greater rate than would have been seen if they had been distributed or made available earlier to a more numismatic audience. We can all agree dozens or even hundreds went to the crucible during the depression or the various silver run-ups in the last century.
I was fortunate to purchase my bronze two years ago yesterday off of eBay, after the seller's BIN auction closed with no buyer. He was a non-coin seller, and his pictures were not very good. But the medal came in the original box, so I gambled.
Their eBay image...
...and what I got:
And I was able to get a companion to the bronze when I nuclear-bid this silver example at HA in June of last year (and won her for roughly half of that bid):
Here's the bronze for scale:
--Severian the Lame
Weiss-I love that one in the original box. Here's mine-
Beautiful even tone on that one.
--Severian the Lame
Thanks!
Found another gold so we're up to 3 of 887. I wonder how many can be traced to the winner.
Gold: US: Grueby Faience Co.: Ungraded
This specimen is currently held by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and was donated by Professor Emeritus F. H. Norton and the Department of Metallurgy and Materials Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The Grueby Faience Company was an American ceramics company that was founded in 1894 in Revere, MA, and was shut down in 1920.
Mine came with the original box, too, and my box is just like the one that Weiss owns. Here is my ungraded piece without box-
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
Here's some info for the medals posted by @Weiss and @TomB for further identification purposes. I couldn't make out the winner for @koynekwest's medal but the name looks to possibly be Spanish.
Silver: William W. Hart
Bronze: A. W. Thompson
Bronze: US: M. W. Frisbie & Son
A company from Southington, Connecticut. The company is mentioned in the Budget Report of the State Board of Finance and Control for Connecticut in 1902.
Bronze: NEGOCIASION MINERA CANDELARIA Y ANEXAS
Negociación
Business Mining Candelaria (Mexico or Chile?) and adjoining
Anybody have any idea what these are? They are gold finished pot metal or some other soft metal. The edges also have bronze on the edge like the regular bronze ones do. I mounted them on a walnut plaque shown in the last pic.
I also have these.