France 1920 Yacht Club Gold Medal Prize

Looks like "Numista" is your go to for information
https://en.numista.com/154077

EDIT: composition silver though?

You may have been deceived if that medal was sold as gold. It is most likely gilded silver. That was the common thing for gold prizes in that time. Gold was expensive, as it is now.

Check the side of the coin. Free if from the plastic if necessary. It should have the mark of the Paris mint stamped there and also the word for the metal. This was done to avoid frauds.

It would be most unusual for one of these prize medals to be gold. Looking at the size and weight it is very unlikely to be solid gold unless it is very thin. Hold your payment if you can.

The yacht and it's owner and who sailed on it are long since gone.

As such this medal becomes the permanent memorial of the event, the yacht, it's owner, and who sailed on it.

If that medal was pure gold for the diameter and weight given it could not be thicker than 1,16 mm. Less because of the metal taken into the high reliefs.

It is not the big medal listed in numista. But I think this small one is also unlikely to be gold. Even alloyed.

Compare to a double eagle that is only 2 mm smaller. The double eagle is much heavier and over 2 mm thick.
This medal to be in gold will have to be the thickness of a 2 1/2 dollar indian. With much larger size and high relief using part of the metal. It would be too thin for a practical prize medal. Possible if done with care. But I would call the Paris Mint for malpractice if they did it.

Seems similar, although light on specs.
https://www.vcoins.com/fr/stores/nu...Default.aspx

The one on worthpoint sold for $2650 Sep 27 2023. Gold melt per ounce was around $1900 at the time of sale.

French made prize medals are a mess for collectors. It is a brave collector who gets into those. I have a few and at least two were incorrectly sold as silver but were electroplated silver. One was identified on the edge, CUIVRE. The other was not. Specific density test confirmed it was not silver.
If a medal is not identified on the edge you must research the press of the time for reports about the prize, sometimes it says how many medals struck in which metals. Or you must test and verify the medal you have.

Many but not all prize medals of the second half of the nineteenth century and beginnings of the twentieth were made using common designs in the Paris mint. There were catalogues to pick the obverse and reverse from. Then the people placing the order also had to pick the metal, size, and surface treatment. So the same designs appear in medals of many different years, sizes and places. Making it even harder to find information about a particular medal.

Napoleon III ordered the Paris mint to always identify the real mental of a medal on the edge because this was a problem then. It was very common to do the medals in a cheaper metal and then apply silver or gold with electroplating to do the silver and gold prizes.

I am not saying that your medal cannot be gold. It can. But my calculations, you should do them yourself in case I made some mistake, make me believe that for that size and weight it would have to be unusually thin.


To give you an idea about how hard in can be to find information about a medal.
This one is signed F. VERNON. Frederic de Vernon. It makes sense. Looking at the style of his work he did french realism and then art noveau. This is art noveau.
A french state museum lists one of these medals in its collection and attributes it to an eighteenth century artist:
https://mnm.webmuseo.com/ws/musee-n...record/30592
graveur : VERNON Edward (1684 - 1757)
Completely wrong.

If you are going to test be aware that the plating on these prize medals is usually thick. Specific gravity is the best nondestructive test.