1797 Medal Washington Masonic GW-29 Brass, Plain Edge MS(PCGS#896106)

Spring 2022 U.S. Coins Auction

拍卖行

Stack's Bowers

批号

1024

等级

AU58+

价格

534,904

详细说明

Superlative 1797 Washington Masonic Medal The Long-Lost W.W.C. Wilson Specimen Perhaps Unique with Plain Edge 1797 George Washington General Grand Master Masonic Medal. Musante GW-29, Baker-288. Brass. Plain Edge. AU-58+ (PCGS). 36.0 mm x 35.6 mm. 258.4 grains. One of the most spectacular surviving specimens of this notable rarity. Struck on a slightly oversize and not quite round planchet, this example displays superb sharpness and incomparable aesthetic appeal on both sides. The surfaces are smooth and glossy, with some traces of golden luster amidst the even golden honey tan surfaces. The impressive relief of the portrait was brought up with two strikes, and slight doubling is noted primarily at the base of the reverse. The peripheries are a bit soft in areas, leaving pre-striking file marks on the handmade planchet visible near 9 o'clock on the obverse and, to a lesser extent, 3 o'clock on the same side. The full border is struck up and bold at the base of the obverse and around most of the reverse, where just the upper right quadrant is not quite realized. The peripheral legends are well defined, and the central motifs look as sharp as ever, even including the fine facial details on the sun and moon at the central reverse. The area opposite the highest relief of the obverse portrait tends to be the softest strike, most notably affecting the square and compass at central reverse, but that region is especially crisp on this specimen. No notable post-striking flaws are seen, underscoring centuries of careful handling in the hands of this medal's owners and admirers. We note just a very light hairline scratch right of the right pillar at central reverse. A tiny pit above H of WASHINGTON is inherent in the planchet, and most of the few subtle darker areas (visible at some angles, invisible at others) are likewise natural in the brass rather than a later corrosive byproduct. This piece was struck from an advanced state of the obverse, with the oft-seen horizontal die crack from the field beneath AS across the tip of Washington's chin to the knot of his peruke. A tiny, raised knob rising from the field above the space between 79 in the date is a die injury and is as struck. Typical examples of this rare medal are in the brass composition seen here (though a single example is known overstruck on a Sheffield plate counterfeit portrait 8 reales of Mexico). Only one silver example is confirmed, an engrailed edge example ex Ellsworth-Garrett IV:1837. A well worn plain edge specimen, ex Mickley, was described in the 1882 Bushnell sale but has not been traced. Another rumored silver specimen, once part of a silver-plated ladle held by a Virginia Masonic lodge, had never been examined by numismatists prior to its disappearance and could prove to be either silver or silverplate. This easily ranks among the very finest known examples of this rarity, far higher than the rank of sixth finest given it by Fuld, who only had the benefit of the plate from this medal's last auction appearance in 1925. The two listed atop Fuld's census are in similar grade to this one, and on any particular day an experienced collector could deem any one of them finest. The Baker specimen, which we sold in 2019 graded EF Details--Environmental Damage (PCGS), is ranked third in the Fuld listing. Our census includes just seven examples in this composition in private hands, plus the confirmed silver specimen and the unique overstrike. There appear to be somewhere between eight and 10 in institutional collections. Almost all of these are well worn. There is also a small number of uniface obverses. The unique white metal die trials, one two-sided and one uniface, in the collection of the Masonic Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, have not been seen but they are illustrated in Fuld. This is the only known specimen with a plain edge, a fact that was noted by the Chapman Brothers when they sold this medal in 1904 and it appears to remain just as true today. The connection of these medals to Peter Getz of Lancaster is both evident and undocumented. The portrait on this medal is not a precise match for those found on the 1792 private patterns by the Lancaster silversmith, but it is either by the same hand or, quite possibly, a copyist's attempt. The detail on the epaulet is quite different, but otherwise the portrait here is plainly copying the 1792 pieces by Getz. Numismatic tradition has long attributed these to Getz's hand, and even today he's as good a guess as any. Getz was an active mason in Lancaster, was master of his local lodge in 1794, and he worked as a die engraver in this era. However, Neil Musante suggested in his Medallic Washington that this medal was probably not by Getz. His reasoning is arguable (it hinged on the famous but now broken ladle owned by a Virginia Masonic lodge), but his conclusion is probably right. The key piece of evidence in identifying the authorship of this medal was discovered in an unusual place: the archives of the descendants of Adam Eckfeldt, which hit the market in 2014. A manuscript entitled "An inventory of Coining Machines taken from Richard Harpers & sent to the Mint of United States by order of the Mayor of this City Aug. 29th, 1797." The authors of 1792: Birth of a Nation's Coinagemake the assumption that Richard Harper was the son of the recently deceased minter and sawmaker John Harper of Philadelphia, who died in either late 1796 or early 1797. The inventory is fascinating, including "1 Coining press compleat with a Leaver without balls," a cutting press, a rolling press, and most everything else someone would need to operate a private mint. For our purposes, the dies on hand are most interesting. They include a single die for "Jersey half pence" along with "2 Dies of General Washington Heads" and "1 [die] of the face Masons coat of Arms." In other words, this 1797 inventory from the estate of John Harper appears to list the obverse and reverse dies of this exact medal. As a coiner, Harper is not necessarily the engraver of this medal; indeed, he may have been contracted by an engraver like Getz to produce them. Saw makers weren't usually the artistic sort, but someone had to have engraved the dies for the cents Harper struck privately in 1795, now known as "Jefferson Head" cents. It could have been Harper, or Getz, or someone else entirely. This medal had a long trip back to the marketplace after the W.W.C. Wilson sale of 1925. It ended up in the collection of Col. E.H.R. Green and was owned by the Green Estate when acquired by Burdette G. Johnson of St. Louis, in partnership with Eric Newman. This example was still in Johnson's hands when he died, and passed thereafter to one of Johnson's employees, Mary Hedgcock Sheffield. Ms. Sheffield's group of rare and important coins and medals that were left to her by Johnson slowly made their way back into the marketplace over a period of years. While uncertain exactly when or how this returned to collector hands, it's most recent stop is notable: it was acquired at a New England estate sale last year. At some point before the W.W.C. Wilson sale, this medal's provenance was conflated/confused with that of the Stickney specimen, which later joined the Ted Craige and Alan Weinberg collections. There are other earlier Washington medals; the Paris-made Voltaire medal ranks first on that list. There are even earlier American-made Washington medals, namely the Manly medals of 1790. But perhaps no other medal struck during Washington's lifetime so captures the personal Washington - the man, the Mason - as this rare medal, a prize that only a half dozen or so collectors can ever hope to own simultaneously. Provenance: From New York Stamp and Coin Company's sale of the Robert Coulton Davis Collection, January 1890, lot 277; Samuel Hudson and Henry Chapman's sale of the Ralph R. Barker Collection, July 1904, lot 426; Samuel Hudson Chapman's sale of the Henry Jewett Collection, June 1909, lot 405; Henry Chapman; Wayte Raymond's sale of the W.W.C. Wilson Collection, November 1925, lot 856; Col. E.H.R. Green Collection; Col. E.H.R. Green estate to Burdette G. Johnson, via Eric P. Newman; Burdette G. Johnson Estate to Mary Hedgcock Sheffield, 1948; unknown collector intermediary; New England estate sale, 2021.