A Favorite Medal
Picking
up on my comments on medals in my last blog, for this issue I mention one of my
favorite medals—struck for the 1838 bicentennial of the city of New Haven,
Connecticut. Key in its production was John Allan, recognized today (in 2018)
as the first rare coin dealer in America. He was a jack of all trades, in
a way. As early as 1815, on Pearl Street, he was booking passages on ships, an
activity he continued into the 1830s. Typically, passengers and freight were
registered on packets to and from Greenoch, Scotland. Trusts and estates were a
large business as well, and he dealt in real estate sales and rentals.
In
1862, Walter Barrett in The
Old Merchants of New York City included
this about him:
“He was
what was called an accountant in the early part of this century
and for many years afterward. Mr.
Allan accumulated a snug property and for many years has been engaged in
settling up complicated accounts. Probably he has settled more estates than any
other man or ten men in this city He
is more lithe and active than half of our youths of twenty. He is famed for an
antiquarian collection of everything relating to our city.”
John
Allan co-designed the New Haven bicentennial medal working with Ithiel Town in
1838. The dies were engraved by Charles Cushing Wright. There were two obverses, the first
signed by Wright, and one reverse. Town was an architect and author of some
renown, and with his partner, Alexander J. Davis, drew plans for the
Connecticut State Capitol, the New Haven City Hall, the capitol buildings of
North Carolina and Indiana, the Wadsworth Athenaeum in Hartford, Connecticut,
and other important structures. Town seems to have been a collector in his own
right and offered “four or five hundred coins, medals, &c., in gold,
silver, and copper” for sale in New York in 1842.
In its
issue of October 1839 an article by John Allan, “On Coins and Medals with a
Notice of the Medal Which Has Been Recently Struck to Commemorate the
Settlement of New Haven, Connecticut,” was published in the American Journal of Science and
Arts. This reflects his broad
knowledge. Excerpts:
On Coins and Medals
“As to
the question, at what period of the world the study of coins and medals
commenced, or at what precise time thy were first fabricated, we are ignorant,
although several writers have endeavored to trace their origin to a very remote
antiquity. The states of Italy were the first, after the revival of literature
and the fine arts, to commence the study and striking of coins and medals; and
the modern governments of Europe have all, more or less, followed their
example.
“Novelty,
beauty and sublimity are the three great sources of moral and intellectual
pleasure, and the incitements to these are well supplied by medals.
“They
display the usages of society, and the habits and forms of persons, with whom
history having made us acquainted, we long to see the faces on which their
minds and characters were impressed. From a similar feeling we are delighted
with the exhibition of the battles, edifices, religious rites, costumes, and
innumerable other interesting circumstances belonging to the age, or
illustrating the characters and actions of eminent individuals
“Hence
Greece and Rome, the noblest states in ancient times, were most distinguished
for their attachment to and production of coins and medals. A vast number of
these have been spared by the destroyer time, to attest the pains and success
with which they were executed, thus evincing the high importance attached to
them in their ages, not only in commemorating passing events, but as gratifying
the wish of posterity, to look back into remote times and thus to obtain the
most important aids to history.
“No
adequate conception can be formed by persons who have paid no attention to the
subject, how highly subservient medals may be made to the gratification of
private taste, to the perpetuation of the memory of objects of personal
history, of domestic endearment, and individual honor; to the illustration of
the success of well laid plans of public enterprise, to the commemoration of
marriages and births, to perpetuating the knowledge of new inventions, and of
the memory of men eminent for learning and talent, and for public as well as
private virtues.
“As
medals are the least perishable of all the materials upon which the artist
displays his powers, they continue current on the tide of time when the
productions of all other arts have sunk into oblivion.
“A
desire to possess modern as well as ancient medals exists at present in the
most distinguished academies and among individuals of all enlightened
countries. Medals are eagerly sought for public libraries and museums, and
governments employ the mint in striking medals and coins to heighten the
splendor of the existing administration and to extend an perpetuate their civil
and military renown.
“Another
source of pleasure and amusement which attends the study of medals is the
finish and beauty displayed in their workmanship by designers and engravers… Several medals were struck at Paris to
commemorate the American Revolution. Congress, some years since, made an
appropriation to have the whole series placed in the national library at
Washington; the vessel that had them in charge (if I recollect right) was lost,
and whether any further action has been had, or any progress since made, I am
ignorant.
“A
medal was struck on Commodore Truxton’s victory,—and another on the war with
Tripoli under Commodore Preble.
“Medals
also were struck by order of Congress, to carry down to posterity the naval
victories of the United States, in the late war with Great Britain. In 18[26],
a medal was struck to commemorate the union of Lake Erie with the Atlantic, by
the great canal. Since that time,
no medals worthy of commemoration have been executed either by individuals, or
any of the states or cities of the United States, till lately, New Haven in the
state of Connecticut, has taken the lead, and on the return of the second
centennial anniversary of the founding of the colony by Eaton and Davenport, has
had a medal engraved and struck to commemorate the first settlement of the
city…”
The
preceding article is one of relatively few published prior to 1840 on the
subject of numismatics in America and the appeal thereof. Today, such medals
sell for less than $1,000 each. Now and again we have them in our auctions.
