Indian Peace Medals
1809 James Madison Indian Peace Medal. Bronze. Third Size. First Reverse. Julian IP-7, Prucha-40. MS-65 BN (NGC).
51.0 mm. 1126.6 grains. A most attractive example of this rare medal. Light chocolate brown patina is consistent throughout. The fields are gently prooflike on both sides while the devices exhibit a slightly more satiny finish. Just a trace of friction on the vulnerable highest points and a few tiny handling marks. Struck from the original dies used to produce the silver specimens, but in a later state. There is light spalling on the reverse, most noticeable in the field beneath PEACE. However, as noted previously, there are two distinct states of this die marked by the presence of either one or two chips at the rim just below 3:00. This has only one chip and is thus the earlier state. We have only sold four examples of this medal in bronze over the last decade, including this one in 2013. It is quite rare and probably underappreciated, particularly when considering that a silver example is far out of reach for most collectors, due to availability, even if not for the expense. It is a handsome, fairly early collector strike from the U.S. Mint, probably made before the establishment of the Washington Cabinet and prior to the expansion of American collector interest in the 1850s and 1860s.
Ex David W. Dreyfuss, Bowers and Merena, April 1986, lot 5121; Presidential Coin and Antique, October 2000, lot 390; Charles A. Wharton Collection, Stack's Bowers Galleries, August 2013, lot 1041.
Estimate: $750