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

Paris 1931 International Colonial Exhibition
AMERIQUE Medal

This is one of four medals in a set that interested me very much because of the Indian in headress on the obverse.

On the reverse of the Amerique medal is a reproduction of Mount Vernon, The home of George Wasington which was one of the attractions to represent The United States in the Paris Exposition.



In 1932, Robert Moses also had a replica of Mount Vernon built in Prospect Park in Brooklyn New York to to mark the 200th anniversary of George Washington's birth. The buildings, were constructed by Sears, Roebuck & Company and designed by architect Charles K. Bryant. This one lasted lasted a mere two years before being torn down. The house was located at the base of Lookout Hill on the Peninsula of the Lake.



There were two different compositions of the four that I know of.
The bright brass issues were perhaps closer to 30 mm in diameter but the antiqued bronze were 32 mm. There may have also been brass in 32 mm size. These came in both red and blue boxes.
The antiqued bronze seem to command a higher price.
This one, Amerique - AMERICA is probably the most popular, the others being
Afrique - AFRICA
Asie - ASIA
Oceanie - POLYNESIA (my second favorite design)


The Colonial Exhibitions were supposed to bolster popular support for the various colonial empires.
The 1924 British Empire Exhibition was one, as well as the successful 1931 Exposition coloniale in Paris.
Germany and Portugal also had such exhibitions. Belgium had a Foire coloniale as late as 1948.
Human zoos were featured in some of these exhibitions.

Members of the United States Indian Band playing at the Gare St Lazare, Paris on their arrival in France for the Paris Colonial Exhibition, 1931

I decided to pick up another of the Longines Symphonette medals. It was priced right, and again the high relief is really nice. It weighs in at just under 34 grams and is Sterling.


This one is commemorating James Audubon. Many of us have heard of the Audubon Society, which was founded in the late 1800s for the primary purpose of protecting birds and their habitats. Audubon did not found the society, but one of the founders had been tutored by Audubon's widow, Lucy.

The town I grew up in has some beautiful habitat connected to the Audubon Society, so I have always had some interest in his story. I am including a small snippet below from Smithsonian Magazine. I would encourage anyone to read more on his life, as it is very incredible.

From smithsonianmag.com:

The handsome, excitable 18-year-old Frenchman who would become John James Audubon had already lived his way through two names when he landed in New York from Nantes, France, in August 1803. His father, Jean, a canny ship's captain with Pennsylvania property, had sent his only son off to America to escape conscription in the Napoleonic Wars. Jean Audubon owned a plantation near Valley Forge called Mill Grove, and the tenant who farmed it had reported a vein of lead ore. John James was supposed to evaluate the tenant's report, learn what he could of plantation management, and eventually—since the French and Haitian revolutions had significantly diminished the Audubon fortune—make a life for himself.

He did that and much, much more. He married an extraordinary woman, opened a string of general stores on the Kentucky frontier and built a great steam mill on the Ohio River. He explored the American wilderness from GalvestonBay to Newfoundland, hunted with Cherokee and Osage, rafted the Ohio and the Mississippi. Throughout his travels, he identified, studied and drew almost 500 species of American birds. Singlehandedly, Audubon raised the equivalent of millions of dollars to publish a great, four-volume work of art and science, The Birds of America. He wrote five volumes of "bird biographies" chock-full of narratives of pioneer life and won fame enough to dine with presidents. He became a national icon—"the American Woodsman," a name he gave himself. The record he left of the American wilderness is unsurpassed in its breadth and originality of observation; the Audubon Society, when it was initially founded in 1886, decades after his death, was right to invoke his authority. He was one of only two Americans elected Fellows of the Royal Society of London, the preeminent scientific organization of its day, prior to the American Civil War; the other was Benjamin Franklin.

Very nice write up and excellent piece.

Very nice add and info

TNG and Thisistheshow: thanks for the interesting stories. Great medals too.

I don't remember seeing these before. My memory is not the best, so if you've posted them before,forgive me. Where were these originally issued or from?

I just went back and took a look . Guess I missed that somehow.