A Continuing Thread ~ Post Your Tokens, Medals, Exonumia Acquisitions

TNG, it looks much better than it did before!

Looking good, TNG.

Thanks fellers! Regarding the 1915 Uncle Sam - Panama medal, at the bottom of my earlier post here are updated pics.
http://goccf.com/t/301479&whichpage=125#2966818

I added two images for the final product of my conservation effort in and it even looks better than my pictures in hand.
I think it was fun taking a chance. From a little experience, I have been able to pick up some medals cheap and give them a new life without ruining them with improper cleaning.

Wow TNG! It looks great! Nice job on conserving it!

Great restoration TNG

A 65mm medal described as "brass matte specimen" in the recent Heritage sale of world medals. An Austrian medal featuring Archduchess Annunziata and the Charles Bridge in Prague(?)

Nice HK TNG! Good work on the restoration.

1955 New York Thruway Medallion

A toll superhighway connecting the major cities of the state of New York that would become part of a larger nationwide highway network was proposed as early as 1949. The first section of the Thruway, between Utica and Rochester, opened on June 24, 1954.
Other sections of the 426-mile ( medal says 427 miles ) mainline between Buffalo and the Bronx were completed and opened throughout 1954 and 1955. This would have been the Thruway at the time this medal was made. So I date it 1955.

I have driven most of this Thruway with the exception of the road west of Buffalo which I have never been on. Many a trip where I would get on I-90 south of Rochester and head west to pick up a bulk tanker of flour from Pillsbury Flour Mills in Buffalo. Other times hauling steel into the Boroughs of New York.
All these roads were not smooth sailing. In the city, I have moved as slow as an average of 5 mph for sometimes an hour due to accidents, construction or simply rush hour traffic.
Honestly, I don't know which parts within the city are Thruway and which are Expressways.
I know tolls for tractor trailers were very expensive. That was in the 90's for me.
Traveling parts of I-90 across the state was annoying in places as the road surface paricularly in the right lane was sunken down where the rubber meets the road. The weight of constant loaded tractor trailers and probably the sun baked asphalt produced two distinct grooves in the lane. Not only did you have to stay in the lane but you had to stay in the groove too or you would notice if you went off the tracks in the steering.
Sounds easy but a couple hundred miles of this was very tiresome.
In the winter, it always snowed somewhere along the way just about every day which made driving worse.

I'll consider this medal my award for all that.