Lets make my Lucky Souvenir collection an even dozen.1930's New York Zoological Park Lucky Nickel
Another large 3 inch Lucky Nickel but this one I am relating to "Black Diamond",
James Earle Fraser's reported model for the reverse of the
Buffalo nickel.
However, we may have "Bronx" as the actual model, a bison who was for many years was the herd leader of the bison at the Bronx Zoo.
According to Fraser, the animal that appears on the reverse is the American bison Black Diamond. In an interview published in the New York Herald on January 27, 1913, Fraser was quoted as saying that the animal, which he did not name, was a "typical and shaggy specimen" which he found at the Bronx Zoo.
Fraser later wrote that the model was not a plains buffalo, but none other than Black Diamond, the contrariest animal in the Bronx Zoo. "I stood for hours ... He refused point blank to permit me to get side views of him, and stubbornly showed his front face most of the time."
However, Black Diamond was never at the Bronx Zoo, but instead lived at the Central Park Zoo until he was sold and slaughtered in 1915. Black Diamond's mounted head is still extant, and has been exhibited at coin conventions.
The placement of Black Diamond's horns differs considerably from that of the animal on the nickel, leading to doubts that Black Diamond was Fraser's model.
The Zoo ...
In 1895, a group made up largely of members of the Boone and Crockett Club founded the New York Zoological Society for the purposes of founding a zoo, promoting the study of zoology, and preserving wildlife. The Bronx Zoo is located within Bronx Park in the Bronx NY, a borough of New York City. It is the largest metropolitan zoo in the United States and among the largest in the world.
I thought this was interesting, In 1906, a major controversy erupted when Ota Benga, a Mbuti pygmy, was brought to the zoo by the American businessman and explorer Samuel Phillips Verner. Ota Benga was displayed there as an exhibit. He was allowed to roam the grounds freely. He became fond of an orangutan named Dohong, "the presiding genius of the Monkey House". Dohong had been taught to perform tricks and imitate human behavior.
The events leading to his "exhibition" alongside Dohong were gradual. Benga spent some of his time in the Monkey House exhibit, where the zoo encouraged him to hang his hammock and to shoot his bow and arrow at a target.
On the first day of the exhibit, September 8, 1906, visitors found Benga in the Monkey House.
Soon, a sign on the exhibit read:
The African Pigmy
"Ota Benga."
Age, 23 years.
Height, 4 feet 11 inches.
Weight, 103 pounds.
Brought from the Kasai River,
Congo Free State, South Central Africa
by Dr. Samuel P. Verner
Exhibited each afternoon
during September
and
1939 World's Fair
Golden Gate Exposition-San Francisco Treasure Island Lucky Penny
1939 World's Fair - Golden Gate Exposition San Francisco Treasure Island large souvenir "Indian Head" Lucky Penny medallion. The plated cast white metal medallion features view of the Exposition site in San Francisco Bay with its Tower of the Sun and the Golden Gate Bridge. The souvenir medallion, manufactured for the Fair in Japan, measures 2 3/4 inches in diameter and is in excellent condition with faint traces of wear.
Treasure Island, a flat, geometrically-shaped, artificial island attached to Yerba Buena Island, was built for the Exposition near where the Oakland span and the San Francisco span of the Bay Bridge join.
The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the one-mile-wide strait connecting San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. The structure links the American city of San Francisco, California - the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula - to Marin County, carrying both U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1 across the strait.
The bridge is one of the most internationally recognized symbols of San Francisco, California, and the United States. It has been declared one of the Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
The Frommer's travel guide describes the Golden Gate Bridge as "possibly the most beautiful, certainly the most photographed, bridge in the world."
At the time of its opening in 1937, it was both the longest and the tallest suspension bridge in the world, with a main span of 4,200 feet and a total height of 746 feet.
I had the pleasure of crossing this bridge in the early 1970's once in an old 1960's Oldsmobile and it was quite impressive.
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Posted 09/14/2018 11:33 am
