1776 (1792) United States Diplomatic Medal. Reverse Progress Cliche. Original. Workshop of Augustin Dupre or Paris Mint. Loubat-19. White Metal. About Uncirculated, Graffiti.Approximately 60.5 mm. 14.28 grams. Backed with paper, which is missing from a few areas at the border. The edge is irregular, generally tightly trimmed, but with chipping and roughness in areas that has resulted in minor loss of metal. Handsome pewter gray color to the metal, few light marks in the left field, upper field with a few shallow dents and, to explain our qualifier, an illegible name in faint cursive at the border after the word AND. Light ink marking on the paper side. All design motifs are sharp, and the eye appeal is pleasing.<p>This is not the adopted reverse die. The die broke at some point, probably during hardening. It was preserved by Augustin Dupre and his son Narcisse, the latter of whom sold it (among other things) to the Boston Public Library in 1888. It remains there, though the BPL has no cliche made from it. The Adams and Bentley census, which appears complete, counts six known impressions from that die. The example in the Musee dArt et dIndustrie in Saint-Entienne, France may have been made from the broken die, or the cliche itself may have just been mangled after striking; its tough to tell from the illustration on p. 126 of Trogan and Sorel. The American Numismatic Society, Massachusetts Historical Society (ex Appleton), and Smithsonian Institution (ex Stacks September 1987, lot 96) all hold examples from the die represented here, but we known of only three in private hands: Ford V:195; Ford V:194, the finest, which most recently realized $15,600 in our November 2019 sale of the John W. Adams Collection; and the present example.<p>The number of surviving Diplomatic Medal cliches, perhaps 19 in all, is vastly larger than the surviving total of cliches for most of Dupres American-related medals. This reflects two facts: there were two obverses and three reverses and they kept breaking during hardening, and this medal was considered of top-line importance to the American government. One can imagine William Short huddling with Dupre over these cliches and nervously approving them knowing the weight Thomas Jefferson placed upon this project. The vast majority of those cliches are today in strong institutional hands. Of the dozen or so held privately (one of which is unaccounted for since 1920), eight were in the Ford V sale. Just because collectors today happen to have been alive when that hoard surfaced, they should not consider these cliches as common; they are not. Even if they were, their historical importance could readily overcome it.
