Undated (ca. 1764-1783) Carlos III Al Merito Medal. Bronzed Copper. 38.7 mm. 2.7 mm thick. Betts-536/7, var. Plain Edge. Choice Mint State.<p>Struck in Madrid, signed T. Prieto under the bust. Gorgeous mahogany-brown surfaces with intermingled rose-orange highlights. Both sides are satiny in texture with an overall smooth appearance. Two minor flan flaws are evident at the reverse border at 8 and 10 oclock, tiny nick in the obverse field below the kings nose. Exceptionally well preserved and visually pleasing. An exciting new discovery in the field of Spanish Indian Peace medals, a specialty that has blossomed with the publication of <em>Peace Medals: Negotiating Peace in Early America</em> and Steve Coxs article in the July 2010 issue of <em>The MCA Advisory</em>. In our February 2015 sale, we offered a new entry into this series, the Carlos IV Al Merito Y Fedelidad medal, the first silver example known outside the ANS. The presently offered example is the second of this variant of Betts-536/537 that we have offered, the first appearing as lot 1 in our August 2015 Chicago ANA Sale. That piece was the very first small size Carlos III Al Merito to be sold at auction, and the first recorded copper striking. Further, the obverse die of this type is different from the one used on the Cox medal (found at a Choctaw site in Oklahoma), the one illustrated in <em>Peace Medals</em> from the Museo Casa de la Moneda, and the Ki-He-Kah specimen, still in the hands of the descendants of the Quapaw leader to whom it was given. On this specimen, EMP of the legend begins at Carlos hairline, and his nose is parallel to the left serif of A in LAS. The portrait is also different, presenting a more mature profile that is similar to that found on other medals dating to the late 1770s, suggesting that this die may have been created at a pivot point in this medals history. Cox wrote:"In May 1778, 95 of the original 108 first edition medals were to be sent back to the Royal Mint to be melted down. After May 1778, the small medals were to be struck specifically as military decorations to be awarded to militia officers in the Americas. These were to be only struck in gold." He adds that, "the small silver medals were still being requested by Quapaw Chiefs as late as 1785." Assuming these dies coined both gold medals for military presentation and silver ones for native diplomacy, this variety would have to be considered not only a previously unknown Indian Peace medal type distributed in Spanish Louisiana, but also a Revolutionary War medal awarded to Spanish troops after the 1779 Treaty of Aranjuez, whose terms brought Spain into the American Revolution as an ally of France and the United States. Just three silver small-size Carlos III Al Merito medals are known, one held by its finder, one by descendants of its recipient, and one by a Spanish institution. None have ever sold at auction. We know of only two copper specimens, the present example and the August 2015 Chicago ANA specimen referred to above. Three copper examples of the large Al Merito medals are reported in Spanish institutions, while no fewer than nine of the large Al Meritos of Carlos III are recorded in silver (including two not reported in the census in <em>Peace Medals</em>, one of which was sold on eBay in 2011, the other sold privately soon after by the son of a Louisiana banker who took it in as a silver deposit in the 1940s). No large size Carlos III Al Merito medal in silver has sold at auction since our (Stacks) 2007 John Adams sale.
