1787 Columbia and Washington Medal. Copper, 40.4mm. AU-55 (PCGS).424.4 grains. Coin turn. A simply magnificent medal. From our November 2015 sale of the John W. Adams Collection, where we described it as follows:<p><p><em>One of the great historical rarities among early American medals, a piece too late for Betts, too early for Julian, but avidly sought by serious specialists. This specimen is a lovely one, with superb glossy chocolate brown surfaces and exceptional detail. Some halos of lighter orange cling to design elements on the reverse. The peripheral legends, not always well struck on even high grade specimens, are bold, and the reverse legends are fully struck up despite their shallow relief. The planchet is well made, free of major casting flaws or depressions, showing just a little low spot inside the inner obverse circle under TON of WASHINGTON. A series of dull marks are noted on the reverse, mostly near the base of that side though the largest is seen above RB of DARBY. A few ancient scratches are seen on the obverse, two of which begin at the base of W in WASHINGTON and descend to the top of each vessel; another crosses E of COMMANDED at the base of the obverse. The rim is in good shape, showing only minor marks and abrasions, including one under E of KENDRICK and another on the reverse above the second A of AMERICA and F of FOR. </em><p><p><em>Patterned on the Resolution and Adventure medals of Captain Cook, this medal is the first numismatic relic of Americas push to the Pacific. The Lady Washington and Columbia left Boston in the autumn of 1787, hoping to find a wealth of furs on the Northwest Coast of North America that could be converted to riches in Canton. They carried 300 medals with them, struck from dies by Joseph Callender, whose long dagger-like 7s may be seen in the date digits on this medal and on the 1787 Massachusetts cents and half cents he engraved for the Massachusetts mint. Callender once worked for Paul Revere, who also had a role in the production of this medal, credited with making the planchets for the silver specimens and finishing the planchets of at least some of the copper medals to give their edges an ideal rounded appearance. The medals were well-made despite the fact that their primary target audience were the natives of the Northwest Coast, a group of people that Boston entrepreneur Joseph Barrell hoped to befriend and trade with on an ongoing basis. A year after they left Boston, the two ships and their men were trading in the Northwest, based at Nootka Sound near present-day Vancouver. The Columbia eventually made it to China, and back home to Boston in August 1790. Though the first voyage yielded little profit for their efforts, the Columbia had made the first successful American circumnavigation of the globe. Proud of his successes, Barrell presented a copper specimen of this medal to the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1791, where it still resides. </em><p><p><em>There are thought to be just six specimens known in copper, though that number may be too low by one or two. This is nicer than most of them, including the piece in our March 2014 sale. We have been fortunate enough to offer a number of these since our offering in Ford V both brought this medal to the forefront of the American collector consciousness and vastly increased the collectable population. This piece has been off the market for decades and will undoubtedly see strong interest from those numismatists whose collections are built with history as the primary inspiration.</em><p><p>Syd Martins tireless research - combined with some serendipitous discoveries - revealed the population of known copper pieces is no less than 13, five of which are in institutional collections. The Ford V sale census included just five pieces, including that discovered in a box at Harvard in 1897. While that piece may be represented among ones Syd enumerated, it is not separately listed and could potentially be a 14th example. <p><p>1.Massachusetts Historical Society, donated in 1791 by Joseph Barrell<p>2.U.S. Department of State. Apparently acquired about 1848.<p>3.The Ford specimen, ex. Joseph Lepczyks sale of December 1980, lot 829.<p>4.Privately owned, discovered by Anthony Terranova in an antique store. High grade.<p>5.The present example, ex Ted Craige and John Adams collections, SBG 11-15:23105.<p>6.The Minot Collection specimen, Stacks 5-2008:534, Stacks 9-2010:6114.<p>7.The Charles Wharton Collection specimen, probably ex. Brand-Boyd. SBG 3-14:2008.<p>8.Tillamook County (Oregon) Pioneer Museum. <p>9.The Garrett - Colonial Williamsburg Foundation specimen, ex. Woodwards 69th sale. SBG 9-2010:4196.<p>10.Privately owned, brought to Stacks Bowers Galleries for an appraisal in 2019.<p>11.<em>Rare Coin Review 95</em>, September/October 1993.<p>12. Private New England Collection.<p>13. British Museum. Acquired from Harry Osborn Cureton, 1858. Registration #1858,0710-31. <p><p>The medal given to the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1791 is a Gem and, fortunately, it remains there today. This is probably the second or third finest in private hands.<p><p>.PCGS# 570894.<strong>To view supplemental information and all items from the Sydney F. Martin Collection, click<a href="https://stacksbowers.com/sydney-f-martin-collection/"target=’_blank’> here.</a></strong>.From the Sydney F. Martin Collection. Earlier ex the Ted Craige Collection; our sale of the John W. Adams Collection, November 2015, lot 23105.
