Have you ever considered collecting medals?
291fifth
Posts: 24,275 ✭✭✭✭✭
My only active collection consists of modern medals. It's very lonely collecting these.
I'm thinking about expanding my area of interest to include true art medals from any country or period.
Have you ever considered collecting medals? What draws you to them or repels you from them?
I'm thinking about expanding my area of interest to include true art medals from any country or period.
Have you ever considered collecting medals? What draws you to them or repels you from them?
All glory is fleeting.
0
Comments
- Marcus Tullius Cicero, 106-43 BC
Or maybe this bronze beauty from 1730
<< <i>I am currently collecting so-called dollars and Columbian medals. If I find a cool medal from something else during my search, I don't mind adding it to the collection. I like the variety, the different metals, the different topics, etc. However, there are plenty that are just plain BORING! >>
You are right about many of them being boring. Selectivity is key in putting a nice collection of medals together.
Anyway, looking at Chicago and Baltimore coin shows from 2000-2003 I found very few Assay medals (granted, I wasn't looking that hard) finding only a 1901 in silver with a bad scratch (I passed). There were a few at the 2003 ANA but offered as a group. "Bowers and Merena's" December 2003 sale had a good selection of them. I had decided that I would hold off on auctions until I finished grad school, so I only used this sale to get a bearing on the current "market" for ACM's. This also confirmed that I would be able to obtain one. Then, at the December 2004 Baltimore show, I was looking at some encased postage stamps at Steve Hayden's table when I decided to ask if he had any Assay medals. To my surprise he responded witrh a list of six dates, including 1870, 1890, 1909, and three others in the 20s-30s. Unfortunately at the time my only price guide to ACM's was in my head and thus not that good. I did know however that the 1870 (bronze) had the best design (to me) and should also be the most affordable. As it turns out, it was, and so I purchased it. Then, between the time of the show and when I took it to the safe deposit box, I looked at that medal a few times every day, holding it in my hand, admiring its surfaces and design, just being fully hypnotized by it. And I realized that this medal would not be alone, that I'd be collecting the series. And so since then I have done so.
Here are two examples. The first is a 1974 medal, in its original holder. This is probably the best design of the decade. The obverse is based on the Washington before Boston medal.
This is an 1885 medal in silver. The reported mintage (in Julian/Kreusch) is four in this metal. I know of at least two specimens, and it wouldn't surprise me if there were one to three more. (Yes, I do know what 2+3 is.) This specimen traces its way to Bowers and Merena's sale of the Richard Salisbury collection of 1994, and earlier still to their November 1989 sale, where this piece was included as a selection of exonumia formerly belonging to Virgil Brand. I got this at the last Long Beach show (not from the auction).
Ed. S.
(EJS)
My favorite theme:
Did someone say "high relief"?
Plus a couple that I had pictures uploaded for already:
and
Medals designed by Clifford Hewitt who installed equipment and taught natives its operation; dies by George Morgan of Philadelphia Mint......................
well, i guess Mssrs. Hewitt and Morgan must have forgotten where their inspiration for the reverse die came from, but it wouldn't be the first time with American Coinage or Medallic tribute where artistic licence has in reality been more a form of plagarism. my appreciation of the Manila Mint Opening medal has just sunk a notch................
no
Hope he likes it.
Stork---absolutely gorgeous and impressive
<< <i>from Hibler-Kappen, page 64, pertaining to HK-449/450.............................
Medals designed by Clifford Hewitt who installed equipment and taught natives its operation; dies by George Morgan of Philadelphia Mint......................
well, i guess Mssrs. Hewitt and Morgan must have forgotten where their inspiration for the reverse die came from, but it wouldn't be the first time with American Coinage or Medallic tribute where artistic licence has in reality been more a form of plagarism. my appreciation of the Manila Mint Opening medal has just sunk a notch................
For those not knowing what keets is referring to, here are HK449 (silver) and HK450 (copper) commemorating the openning of the Manila Mint.
Primarily 19th Century medals from Belgium:
England:
And Cathedral medals from the Wiener boys:
Collecting:
Conder tokens
19th & 20th Century coins from Great Britain and the Realm
I do say though that some are very interesting and not expensive at all. They may be a nice thing to collect untill the coin market simmers down a little. Bob
<< <i>J.J. Mickley was an ancestor of mine. >>
Really? Wow! I own a Mickley medal as well, the portrait piece accomplished by Lea Ahlborn of Sweden. I can think of no finer numismatic ancestor -- not even Feld's great uncle!
Medals are one of my great loves, particularly medals struck to show improvements in minting technology and early American historical medals. Perhaps my favorite medal is a silver inaugural medal by Thomas Jefferson, the first American work of John Reich. Jefferson, who was an active medal collector through his retirement, liked the portrait on it enough that he gave one to each of his daughters. In one of the greatest bargains ever, Jefferson once paid a Virginia neighbor a quarter for an Indian Peace medal!
For those of you interested in medals, may I recommend the Medal Collectors of America? The monthy magazine is extremely informative, including contributions from some of America's best known collectors and researchers. I'm not just a member, I'm also the VP.
Betts medals, colonial coins, US Mint medals, foreign coins found in early America, and other numismatic Americana
and here is my little patethic little collection
were one of the official distributors of them and for $35 I figured why not? Looked kind of interesting.
My goal was to purchase pieces that were struck from the original dies whenever that was possible. Failing that I looked for the earliest pieces that I could find. The first U.S. mint was unable to produce the original versions of these medals, and all but one piece were first produced at the French mint in Paris. Later, by the mid 19th century, the U.S. mint began to produce these pieces, mostly from new dies that very close in appearance to the original pieces.
The member who began this thread stated that he is collecting modern medals. The trouble is the modern medals the mint sells today are the “yellow bronze” or sandblasted pieces, which most collectors find to be quite unattractive. In the 19th century the mint took considerable care in putting a rich mahogany finish on the medals, often over a proof-like surface. By the 1890s the U.S. mint emulated the Paris mint and began to issue medals with a dull matte finish. From then on the quality of U.S. mint medals has suffered, and so has the collector interest in them.
I run on here for too long. If that is an interest in my medals, I’ll post some pictures. It really is an under appreciated area of U.S. numismatics.
versions. Where mintages were once in the dozens they are now often in the tens of
thousands. There are numerous types of modern medals and many are made in small
numbers or were made in large numbers but had a local release and high attrition.
My OmniCoin Collection
My BankNoteBank Collection
Tom, formerly in Albuquerque, NM.
<< <i>Have you ever considered collecting medals? What draws you to them or repels you from them? >>
I don't really collect medals, but I do have one.
Got from a deceased relative who was an
orphaned indian back in the 1880's. Don't
know a whole lot about the medal though.
<< <i>
>>
That is cool and very thoughtfull!
Looks like an Heraldic eagle on a skate board
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