Indian Peace Medals
1841 John Tyler Indian Peace Medal. Silver. Third Size. Julian IP-23, Prucha-45. Very Fine, or so.
50.9 mm. 887.4 grains. Pierced for suspension as usual, but reinforced by way of insertion of a short tubiform piece of silver to strengthen the hole which had become severely worn. The edge is bulged slightly at this point. It is obvious that the medal was further worn after the reinforcement so it is clear this was done by or on behalf of someone who wore it, not in an attempt to improve it for a collector. Mostly medium to light gray with somewhat deeper patina in the recesses and outlining the rim and design features. Myriad small marks are consistent with a long-used Peace medal, yet the continued wear has largely smoothed these. There are no serious marks worthy of individual mention save perhaps for a small obverse rim bump at 9:00. A single small die chip is seen outside of inner rim border just below the 3:00 position, this being the marker for the earlier state of this die. In Carl Carlson's survey of auction appearances he found just three offerings of a small-size Tyler, the same number he found for the largest size. When Michael Hodder wrote the Ford sales, he commented that he was aware of only two prior auction appearances (not including the two medals in Ford). One was this piece and the other the Senter sale specimen, which he identified as the one at ANS. In fact, those are not the same medals. The one at ANS was gifted by Edward D. Adams, who died two years prior to the Senter sale. Wayte Raymond was the buyer in Senter, so it is quite likely that Senter's piece was the one sold in Ford XVI (lot 138) with "Wayte Raymond Estate" as the provenance. The present writer's own work has located nine specimens. Four among the nine are in institutional collections. As mentioned above, it is believed that 100 small-size Tylers were struck and that a significant portion remained unawarded and was returned for melting. It seems that the number of Tyler medals extant across all three sizes is about equal, making all of them significant rarities.
Ex Presidential Coin and Antique, July 1993, lot 273; Stack’s, January 2003, lot 1517; Stack’s, May 2008, lot 541.
Estimate: $9000