Great Great Grandfather's Award - Coin Community Forum

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Lcbrown New Member United States 1 Posts	Posted 08/21/2011 4:43 pm Hi all! Digging through my grandmother's estate, we happened upon this old award--the "James Craig Watson Award", bestowed by the National Academy of Sciences. The coin dates back to 1894. It is still awarded to this day, now once every three years. The thing weighs a ton--it must be around 6-8 ounces. Trying to determine what material it was made out of. The weight makes me think gold, BUT, as the pictures show below, it seems to have corroded just a bit. Gold doesn't corrode, correct? Any ideas? Just looking at the award on the wikipedia page makes me think they've changed the material used since this coin was produced: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_...Watson_Medal The box reads "Tiffany & Co / New York / Paris London" Interested in hearing what you all think it's made of! Report this Post to the Staff

Sap Moderator Australia 16845 Posts	Posted 08/21/2011 7:02 pm Quote: The weight makes me think gold, BUT, as the pictures show below, it seems to have corroded just a bit. Gold doesn't corrode, correct? It doesn't, you are correct. I suspect the yellow colour is "gilding metal", a kind of brass popular back in the 1800s. The engraving does not show a different coloured metal beneath the surface, so the medal was either gilded after it was engraved, or it's made of solid gilding metal. The box and medal are still in excellent condition; a wonderful family heirloom, even if it's not solid gold. Have you tried contacting the NAS directly to see if they know what they used to make their medals out of? Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis Report this Post to the Staff
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