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

Here are two of my other Jamestown SCDs - a silver and a bronze. (I also have the silver-plated version, but don't have an image of it.) They match well with my gilt version shown above.

great to see the different emissions come together in this thread

I just got this today at our local Coin show. The dealer said that he used to deal a lot in Olympic medals in 1976 and had never seen this. He also said that it was made in Austria.

At 1.000 silver it wasn't much over bullion.

It is large:50 mm in diameter and 1.44 oz ASW

The Argenteus silver piece shown above was the work of Werner Graul of Munich, Germany. He was a medalist who had a dream of creating an international currency of gold and silver. He began by creating gold medals that he called "Aureus Magnus" in the mid-1950s. A few years later, he added silver medals to his "product" line and called them "Argenteus." Pieces were issued from 1955 to 1981.

Twenty years or so ago, while going through back issues of the American Numismatic Association's The Numismatist magazine from the 1960s and '70s, I came across ads for his silver medals. He described them as "The first and unique attempt to establish an International Coinage." He used the "Aureus Magnus" names for his business.

I was always intrigued by the silver pieces, but not enough to seek them out. The silver medals were struck as proof pieces using 0.999 fine silver planchets. They were available in 15 gram and 45 gram sizes; they were termed "single" and "triple," respectively. I pulled out a magazine from 1969 and found the "single" pieces were being sold for $5.00 and the "triple" pieces for $10.00; discounts were offered for multi-piece orders of either size.

The obverse changed from issue to issue, but a common reverse was used across issues. The design is a cross of six lilies. The inscription "Pro Prosperitate Mundi" translates as "For the Prosperity of the World."

As I was typing up this response, I got curious and searched the internet for "Aureus Magnus." Sure enough, there is web site dedicated to these pieces. You can access it hear: http://www.aureus-magnus.com/. It's in German, but Google's translate feature works well on the site.

@oriole: Thanks for sharing the image - it's the first time I've seen one other than those shown in the various ads I've read.

Great info commems.

@commems, I will save your write up and put it with the medals. So that is what the III means. I also got the "I" piece which is identical aside from the size and the Roman numeral "I". The dealer thought that there was a "II" piece but it appears that there was not.

As a side note, I posted this just out of general interest, not specifically looking for more information.

But there is so much knowledge here, there is a good chance that somebody knows quite a bit more, which was certainly the case here.

Excellent!