(1783) Libertas Americana medal. Betts-615. Silver. MS-62 (PCGS).ZZZ grains. A deeply toned and beautiful example of America’s most famous historic medal. Thoroughly covered in blue-green toning on the obverse, with breaks of gold in areas of the obverse periphery, while the reverse shows a broader range of pale green, champagne gold, pastel blue, and silvery gray. Deeply reflective and nicely lustrous, this piece’s visual appeal surpasses its technical grade. The toning masks some trivial marks and faint hairlines, the latter more notable on the reverse than the obverse. The rims are perfect, and Dupre’s famous designs are spectacularly defined. <p>No other medal in the canon of American numismatics is invested with so much history and importance as the Libertas Americana medal. It followed the declaration of American independence, whose date is placed in the obverse legend, and the support of France in the American cause. The two greatest American victories, that of Gates at Saratoga and Washington at Yorktown, are referenced with dates in the reverse exergue. The British armies defeated on those dates, Burgoyne’s force at Saratoga and that of Cornwallis at Yorktown, are incorporated into the reverse allegory as the snakes strangled by Hercules in his crib. In that allegory, France is depicted as Minerva, defending the infant from the lioness, Great Britain, whose tail curls between her hind legs. The obverse design influenced many of the depictions of Liberty that would come from the first United States Mint, directly inspiring the Liberty Cap design found on copper half cents and cents in the 1790s. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of later American medals and tokens used the design, from privately issued business cards to the United States Mint’s 1945 Assay Commission medal. Its image was featured on contemporary engravings and textiles, and examples could be found in the 18th century in the collections of Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Adams, and more. No founding father is as closely associated with the medal, of course, as Benjamin Franklin. The medal was his brainchild and pet project, and every specimen that survives traces its provenance to him.<p>Silver examples are perhaps 10 times rarer than bronze examples. Having been distributed non-numismatically, many have been mishandled, and examples this fine are legitimately rare. This example has been off the market since our nation’s Bicentennial, when interest in the American Revolution and its history reached a fever pitch. Interest in the Libertas Americana medal, on the other hand, has never been higher than it is now.PCGS Population: 6; 3 finer.From the Archangel Collection. Earlier, from Pine Tree’s sale of the John Carter Brown Library Collection, May 1976, lot 889.
