1757 AR Medal Betts-401, J-IP-49 Quaker Indian Peace MS(PCGS#971348)

Spring 2025 Showcase Auction U.S. Coins

拍卖行

Stack's Bowers

批号

1145

等级

VG8

价格

282,234

详细说明

42.8 mm. 396.5 grains. Overstruck, with the edge device of the Spanish colonial Pillar dollar or 8 reales that served as a planchet. Holed at 12 o'clock, as typical. One of the most desirable of all American medals, coined in Philadelphia in 1757 by Joseph Richardson the Elder from dies by Edward Duffield. Evenly and lovingly worn, with the lower relief reverse more worn than the high relief portrait of George II, as usually seen. The obverse portrait was copied from a contemporary coin of George II, while the reverse shares a scene with a famous Indian trade gorget made by Joseph Richardson the Elder. The hole is smooth and nicely worn, and both sides show a scattering of tiny contact marks that evince display use but not damage. A horizontal scratch is noted in the lower left obverse field, and a hint of a graffitied initial is hidden beneath the bust. The reverse legend, usually the first design element to be worn off on a well used example, is essentially complete, with only LET US of LET US LOOK TO THE MOST HIGH WHO BLESSED OUR FATHERS WITH PEACE worn away. The visual appeal is superb, blending the collector's desire for a legible specimen with the historian's love of a relic that served its intended function.<p>The Friendly Association for Regaining and Preserving Peace with the Indians was a group of Philadelphia Quaker merchants who had far more to gain from the commercial possibilities of peaceful relationships with Pennsylvania's native Americans than from the French and Indian War. The origin story of this medal is told in the description of the silver Kittanning Destroyed medal above, as derived from firsthand documents left by Joseph Richardson the Elder's eponymous son. The senior Richardson was a high profile Philadelphia silversmith, leading Quaker, and member of the Friendly Association. Richardson was a major manufacturer of Indian trade silver, a profitable endeavor that relied on peaceful trading relationships with natives in Pennsylvania and beyond. While the Friendly Association undoubtedly used these medals to solidify existing trading relationships, many were distributed at the Treaty of Easton, signed after several years of intense conferences between local tribes and the government of Pennsylvania. Benjamin Franklin printed the official versions of minutes from the conferences of July and November 1756, July and August 1757, and October 1758. His official printed documents for 1756 and 1758 conferences include inventories of the goods brought to the treaty fire by the Quakers. While no inventory was published in 1757, and the 1758 inventory is silent about medals, the 1756 inventory includes "12 Silver Medals of King GEORGE," which begs the question: were some kind of imported English medals of generic types distributed in 1756 that proved unsatisfactory, or were these medals actually struck and distributed at the end of the year before the date on the medal?<p>An original 1757 Quaker Peace medal is an item of transcendent importance well beyond the world of numismatics. Aside from its great interest, it is also very rare. We've sold only one silver original since the Ford XVI Indian Peace medal sale of October 2006: an unholed high grade example that was retained by a Philadelphia family until it was sold in a non-numismatic auction in 2006. It brought $103,500 in our sale of September 2009. John Ford understood the importance of these medals, amassing a record haul of three original examples, ranging in grade from Uncirculated (though holed, as intended) down to a "Very Good to Fine" example that had initials engraved on the reverse. The presently offered example was among the 13 pieces Michael Hodder identified in a census listing, ranked as #6. Of those 13, four were then impounded in institutional collections: three at ANS and one at Winterthur. Since that time, one of the Ford medals has gone to Colonial Williamsburg. We can add one more original example at Tulsa's Gilcrease Museum and know of one other held privately, for a total population known to us of 15 pieces, of which 1/3 are off the market permanently.<p>The Kittanning Destroyed medal and the Quaker Treaty of Easton medal are the first and second medals ever struck in what became the United States. While the Kittanning Destroyed medal is not collectible in its original form, this medal is. We have not sold an awarded example in nearly 20 years, an interval over which interest in important early American medals has increased dramatically. This medal, clearly awarded as it is, evokes something special no restrike could ever hope to.