Commems Collection Medals: 1986 Coca-Cola Centennial Celebration

I really enjoy these occasional posts on various historical medals commems - your scholarship on presenting them is about the only trustworthy reference I have to learn about a sampling of these.

Please know that your contributions to this topic (and everything else you write about) are much valued and appreciated.

Hi Commems, I had done some research on this 3" bronze medal attempting to find out the mintage of both the bronze (one person casually mentioned 50,000 which didnt seem right and there was no printed info which was with the product confirming mintage info) and also the 5 troy oz silver version, at least one was held in a custom black velvet lined cherry wood case with brass hardware I have photos of the silver coin and case if you want to see -- which led me to the American Numismatic Society and through several people there David the librarian and then the curator in charge of the MACO materials, Jesse Kraft who found the below info. A silver medallion was mentioned to be 2.5" across side-to-side from one seller I got a reply from (it is listed as almost 5 oz silver) so interestingly we have a 3" bronze, a 2.5" silver, and looks like a 6" and 1.25" may exist. If you come across any other info let me know.

Thank you for reaching out to the American Numismatic Society, and my apologies for the long delay in getting back to you. According to my records, these were supposedly struck in 6", 3", 2.5", and 1.25" diameters. Unfortunately, the true mintage of these medals is currently unknown for any size. 50,000 seems exorbitantly high, and would exceed the mintage of most medals ever made. In the MACO catalogue, this medal is listed as 1985-193 (meaning that it was the 193rd pair of dies created by MACO in 1985, out of 370 pairs for that year, so somewhere near the middle). I do have an original, hand-written press operator's log, but it starts on August 1, 1985, just around when the dies for this medal were made. The third listing in the entire book is for "Maco - Coca Cola Medal" which is undoubtedly this medal (as the last Coca-Cola medal made by MACO was in 1983, the next wasn't until the end of 1986). This was for just 25 bronze 3" medals that were struck on August 1. This is the only specific mention of the Coca-Cola medal by name in the log.

However, Communicorp (the company who commissioned MACO to strike the medals for Coca-Cola is listed several more times, most of which are likely in reference to this medal (the last Communicorp commissioned medal was in early 1984, and the next was in late 1985). Here is a list of references I found of medals struck by Communicorp that could potentially be the Coca-Cola medal:

August 5, 1985 — 350 bronze — size unknown
September 6, 1985 — 1,176 bronze — 3"
October 2, 1985 — 280 bronze — 2.5"
October 30, 1985 — 100 F/S (not sure what that means, but perhaps plated-silver) and 8 bronze — 2.5"
December 9, 1985 — 2,178 bronze — 3"
January 22, 1986 — 1,822 bronze — 3"

Again, since the log does not begin until August 1, 1985, there is the potential that more were struck before that date, and that any of the Communicorp listings are in reference to another medal. From what I have read, these were not sold directly to the public, but given to Coca-Cola distributors, as you mentioned, but have no real source for that aside from what others have said online.

Here are the images for the silver 2.5" version and the custom black velvet lined cherry wood case with brass hardware, I'll put them in this thread since the discussion includes all the versions of the medal. One was sold recently with the case for $425 so its not quite as inexpensive or easy to locate as the bronze version. The majority sold also do not have the case so that is another reason for these pics.

Hello Friends:

There is a medal like this up for sale currently (not mine) on the bay that has a "Coca Cola Collectors Club--12th Annual Convention" tag inside the box.

This might indicate that these were indeed minted in larger numbers than originally thought and marketed to collectors?

Thanks for the Welcome!