1809 James Madison Indian Peace Medal. Third Size. Julian IP-7, Prucha-40. Silver. Extremely Fine.50.8 mm. 825.4 grains. Neatly pierced for suspension at 12:00, as issued. Fairly uniform deep gray silver on both sides, with slight accents of pale blue in the fields and traces of light natural surface debris in some of the recesses. Close inspection reveals many tiny marks and a few small scratches, the most notable beneath Madisons truncation. These marks are quite consistent for an issued medal, which this almost certainly was. However, it was handled with a degree of care, and is among the nicer examples of the few small-size Madisons known, discounting the superb but unpierced one in the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. The present medal retains some of its original prooflike reflectivity in the fields, which makes for an unusually inviting aesthetic overall. Excellent detail remains throughout. A single die chip is noted inside the reverse rim at 3:00. This is visible on nearly all medals from this reverse die, through those issued for the Polk administration. The only exception we have seen is a lone Madison in the collections of Colonial Williamsburg, a specimen we sold in January 1999. This failure came early, after some very small number of medals was struck. A line left by a joint in the collar is noted on the edge at 6:00.We are aware of just 12 specimens of the silver Madison in this size, although one we have not yet been able to confirm with photographic evidence. Fully half of those known to us are in institutional collections, including the one we do not have images of, but it is at the ANS, so it is probably a reliable entry. When we offered the Ness Collection medals in November 2020, we sold the Madison as one of 13 known, but further study has revealed one entry to be a duplicate or forgery, so the number known has been reduced accordingly. When we offered the Ness medal, it was the only example in silver we had offered in a decade (having offered the same piece in 2013 and in 2020), so it is remarkable to be able to offer another so soon, particularly one that is equally nice. In fact, this is a virtual twin to the Ness specimen. When Carl Carlson did his research on auction appearances in 1986, he found only six auction records for a silver Madison of this size, and some of those were almost certainly repeat appearances of single medals. The third-size Madison remains the rarest size of the three issued.From Presidential Coin and Antiques sale of June 1992, lot 292.
