Betts-603
1782 Holland Receives John Adams as Envoy Medal
Catalog Reference
A.J.N., II, 64; XXIII, 32
V.L. Sup. 573
On the obverse, allegorical figures of the Netherlands and America, termed LIBERA SOROR or "free sisters," meet at an altar of commerce while the Netherlands offers America a "free cap" or Dutch-style Liberty cap. On the reverse, the English unicorn has run head-long into a horn-breaking immovable object, while the legend fills in the context: "Tyranny repelled by valor," trumpets the peripheral legend, with "under the auspices of France" in the exergue.
The medal's engraver, Johann George Holtzhey wrote to John Adams, then serving in the Netherlands, in an October 20, 1782 letter: "your nation's independence has inspired me to immortalize this great and noteworthy event in a medal commemorating its liberty," namely the medal we now call Betts-603. Adams received "the first proof," but the medal was widely distributed both in the Netherlands and beyond. This Betts number offers unsurpassable artistry, allegory, and historical importance.
The example to the left was sold by Stack's Bowers Galleries in the Sydney F. Martin Part V Collection, where it realized $9,000.
