Resolute Americana Continental Dollar Collection


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Coin Details

  

Set Details
Coin Description:
Grade: NGC MEDAL AU 55
Owner: Roblou270
 
Set Category: Thematic & Topical Coins
Set Name: Resolute Americana Continental Dollar Collection
Slot Name:
Research: Currently not available

Owner's Description

This is a rather rough looking medal. Eric Newman believes it to be the only Treaty of Paris medal to have been coined in the Americas. It pays homage to the Continental Dollar reverse with the thirteen interlocking rings of the colonies. Additionally, the medal is struck in pewter and weighs approximately the same as the Pewter Continental Dollar and as such, I have included it in my collection. The great collections of Norweb, Newman, Ford and Partrick also included a copy of this medal in their collections so why should I break the trend? This particular coin is the finest copy to become available since the Ford sale in 2003. It is listed as #42 in "The 100 Greatest Medals and Tokens" by Q. David Bowers and Katherine Jaeger. Their estimate is that possibly only 12, or slightly more, may have survived. Given the infrequency of the medal's appearance at auction, this would seem to be validated. I am in the process of tracking down this particular medal in earlier auction archives. Both this medal and the Fugio cent would seem to indicate the importance of the Contiental Dollar. Update: May 26, 2015 This is among the top 3 or 4 Treaty of Paris medals in existence. In the 1871 Clay auction referenced under the silver 1-C, the medal was described as "white metal." The note in the auction catalogue says, "This medal is so nearly unique that after the most diligent inquiry I can learn of the existence of but one other, which is in the collection of Mr. Appleton. I ought to state here that Dr. Clay thinks that the edge bears the incsription "Continental Currency" faintly impressed on it, a slight oxidation, not extending to the surface, makeing the words very indistinct." (Note: Mr. Appleton references Mr. W. S. Appleton who, according to the July 1874 American Journal of Numismatis, p. 23, his "collection is, without a doubt, the largest and most valuable in this country.") In reviewing mine, I cannot see this purported inscritpion. The auction catalogue contained a larger write-up about the Treaty medal, as well as a plate of the coin, versus that of the silver Continental dollar. In my opinion, it was viewed as being of greater importance, though the silver Continental dollar did sell for more than 3 times that of the medal. Little was known about the silver Continental dollar at that time compared to those of the Treaty of Paris and the Libertas Americana medals. For example, there is a recorded auction sale of the Libertas Americana in 1843, according to The American Jouranl of Numismatics and Archaeological Societies, October 1870, p. 37. Obviously, the buyer of the silver Continental dollar had a different opinion to that of the auction cataloguer. Time has proven that the buyer's opinion was the correct one.

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