1857 James Buchanan Indian Peace Medal. Silver. First Size. Julian IP-34, Prucha-50. Extremely Fine. 75.4 mm. 2733.2 grains. Pierced for suspension as typical, with a bent loop of the original style. Actually a bit sharper than the grade might suggest, but we have taken into account a rim bump at the left reverse. Mostly light gray silver with soft golden brown and blue accents in many of the finer recesses that serve to nicely accentuate the design features. A few small rim nicks and other marks as well as hairlines on both sides, but the surfaces are still nice enough to show much of their original, satiny luster. In terms of overall sharpness and eye appeal, this is probably the finest first-size Buchanan medal we have handled, and it might well be the finest extant.<p> <p>With the Buchanan medals came another change of the reverse design, though the general theme is not much different from that seen on the reverse used for the Fillmore and Pierce administrations. Here, a large central medallion features a Native American family having adopted Euro-American ways in homesteading, a man plowing his field while his children play baseball in the distance. This is the first known reference to the game in numismatics, but it was quite new at the time, and it seems rather remarkable that it would find its way into the medallic arts in this particular context. Around the medallion is a depiction of the Native American lifeways as being utterly "savage," with men in a scalping scene at the top, implements of war at lower left and right (that on the right being superimposed over a peace pipe), and a lamenting womans portrait at the bottom, implying that only sorrow is achieved through traditional ways. <p> <p>Though efforts to create the Buchanan medals began in spring 1857, the medals were not delivered until April 1858. This was partly due to the unexpected passing of Joseph Willson, who had designed the new reverse. According to Prucha, 69 large-size medals were struck, and "there is no indication that any of them were melted down to make other medals," which would be a fairly sizable net issue. Still, Carl Carlson found just three auction records for a large Buchanan in silver, and the Ford Collection contained only two examples. The writers own survey has accounted for 16 distinct specimens, five of which are in institutional collections. <em>From the E Pluribus Unum Collection. Earlier from the Wayte Raymond Estate; John J. Ford, Jr.; our (Stacks) sale of the John J. Ford, Jr. Collection, Part XVI, October 2006, lot 154.</em><em></em>
