I Am Not An Animal ... I Am A Human Being! ... And I Collect Medals

Before going on to the continuing thread, I'd have to admit that European collectors have a much greater happy hunting ground for exonumia. Right now on my desk are jetons and rechenpfennigs dating from the mid 1500s, most of which cost me about the price of a beer. We have an advantage of history and geography, but it's always a two way traffic. I can find astounding European medals in America for half of their price here, and it works the same for you guys. Something that appears for sale outside of its home market is freqently a bargain for the savvy buyer.

There is an untapped area of U.S. Mint issues (aka Bureau of the Mint before 1984) of which I have focused on since 2013. I find this area extremely fascinating and rich in research.

Here is one example of my research (it took some time to locate this 1960 article). These are true presidential artifacts manufactured by the Bureau of the Mint. These are U.S. Government awards and NOT commemorative issues. You had to be an original recipient to obtain these awards first hand. They were not sold publicly by the Bureau of the Mint. As a result they hold a level of prestige to collect/own. More of this series can be read at http://www.potus-sgm.com/


Another part of my research shows the overarching manufacturing functions from 1958 through 1962 (I plan to expand the time period as my research expands).

The term "special medals for U.S. Government agencies" and related terms are documented in the Director of the Mint Reports (in my case 1958 through 1962). The concept of the "Manufacturing Triad of the Bureau of the Mint" has been written for decades, but no one "saw" nor documented this manufacturing pattern. The red text (and the two bullets above) in the second visual are other new research findings that I made.





I shared these findings with a well known National Medal book writer/publisher and he was "shell shocked".

This manufacturing triad brings focus to the undocumented special medals and in my case, I created an entire new Bureau of the Mint medal series. This is a U.S. numismatic first, as the series was created over half-century after they were manufactured (yes, I have research and found mintages, destruction numbers, numbers in the National archive, designers, period of use, etc...).

I have seen these medals increase in value slightly over spot silver to +$900 in a period of a decade.

The "Manufacturing Triad of the Bureau of the Mint" provides the means to provide equal footing of medals with with "coins for commerce". Who knows...this may be the proper way all books discussing U.S. Mint products should be organized to be all-inclusive..

My ANA blog discusses this triad in more detail.

https://www.money.org/collector/drd...a-1958-1962-

https://www.money.org/collector/drd...a-1958-1962-

Nice post DrDarryl. I am goin to link it to my other post where medals are shown in
A continuing thread ~ Post your recent Tokens, Medals, Exonumia acquisition thread

http://goccf.com/t/301479&whichpage=3#2579151

I have an inquisitive urge for numismatic research ....

Anyway, how about these new finds I made ...

Another undocumented Bureau of the Mint medal series for the fans of the Bison/American Buffalo.

Identifier DoI sGm series (Department of the Interior special Government medal):



A comparison of the DoI meritorious service medal and DoC (Department of Commerce) meritorious service medal.


If you look carefully, Gilroy Robert's hallmark is below the right side of the DoI building. Frank Gasparro's hallmark (incuse) is next to the eagle's right leg on the DoC medal.

Also, the buildings are the agency's headquarters in Washington DC.

More info at my ANA blog:
https://www.money.org/collector/drd...-of-the-mint

Beautiful medals.

Thanks gaman!