1779 (ca. 1874-78) Henry Lee at Paulus Hook Medal. Betts-575, Julian MI-5. Silver, 45 mm. AU-55 (PCGS). 525.1 grains. Original obverse, U.S. Mint copy reverse. Struck at the Philadelphia Mint. Golden toning covers prooflike brilliant silver gray surfaces on both sides. Hairlines from a light old polishing remain, but so too does the natural reflectivity of the polished fields. The obverse is cracked and rusted, as always seen. The strike is full, and J.WRIGHT is prominent at the bust truncation. The reverse is nicely reflective and shows no significant flaws.<p><p>The Henry Lee medal is the only Comitia Americana medal to have not been executed in Paris. Its also the only collectible medal by Joseph Wright. It was to be Wrights last completed commission, and one for which he was not got paid before his death in 1793 (his estate was recompensed for his work in 1795). The dies for this medal both broke in hardening. The impression of the obverse in the American Philosophical Society was made before the dies were cracked or hardened, and a set of uniface trials exist at the Massachusetts Historical Society, but all other impressions show the obverse crack seen here. The reverse was not salvageable, forcing the creation of this one by William Barber in 1874.<p><p>Interestingly, the weights of these pieces appear to be batched: the Ford-Adams piece (397.2 grains) must have come from a different group of planchets (and probably a different production run) from this example (525.1 grains) and the primary Ford piece (495.1 grains).<p><p>We have not sold a Lee in silver since we resold the second of Fords two specimens in the 2019 John W. Adams sale (no one else has either). Before that, our 2009 Philadelphia Americana sale included both Ford examples that had both sold in Ford XIV in 2006. When we cataloged the Adams sale, we noted several auction appearances between 1876 and 1916 and then none until the Ford sale. This medal, sniffed out by Mr. Margolis as an unappreciated rarity at the time, was one we missed, but that still only represents three of these appearing at public auction in the last century.<p><p>Bronze examples are significantly more common; even so, the LaRiviere-Ford specimen achieved $16,800 in our E Pluribus Unum sale of November 2021.<p> From the Richard Margolis Collection. Earlier from the American Numismatic Society Collection; Johnson and Jensens sale of February 1978, lot 58.
