Description
The Reeded Edge recently purchased an extensive collection of certified Washington numismatica featuring medals, store cards, propaganda, pieces, and general exonumia. These pieces are all contemporary, most emanating from the middle-19th century. Included are designs by Barber, Paquet and Lovett, to name a few. There are some extremely high grade and rare pieces in this collection, so careful examination is encouraged. We do not see pieces like this often, let alone this many at one time!
With that said this is a ca 1844 WASHINGTON NUMISMATICA, GW-101 BRONZED-JOHN BACON DIES, PCGS SP-64-RARE! 41.3 mm. 616.0 grains. Rich chocolate brown bronzing with nuances of olive and subtle mahogany. Minor nicks and marks are noted on both sides, but none is serious or distracting. Thin outlines of orange red are visible around many of the peripheral details where the striking process thinned the bronzed surface to reveal fresh copper. This is a phenomenon often seen on bronzed pieces; why this underlying metal tends not to oxidize is unknown to us. The obverse is pleasantly smooth and proof-like, while the reverse appears slightly subdued from fine die lines that largely fill the fields. Numerous spalling lumps are noted on this side, and it appears that the Paris Mint endeavored to clean the die up a bit prior to striking this medal. Interestingly, the small patch of spalling seen on some impressions above AME is very much minimized on this piece, but it is difficult to be sure if this grinding of the die removed some of those features or if they developed after this impression. Prominent collar marks on the edge at 3:00 and 6:30 relative to the obverse. Only a single die pairing has been seen for the John Bacon die variant. According to Musante, these dies were cut by John Bacon in 1844, and as the Paris Mint privy mark indicates a date range between 1842 and 1845, there is left only a brief window in which these medals were struck, in late 1844 or by June 1845.
Provenance: From the John M. Pack Collection. Earlier from our (Bowers & Ruddy’s) sale of the Stanley DeForest Scott Collection, June 1975, lot 480; our sale of the E Pluribus Unum Collection,.
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