1849 Zachary Taylor Indian Peace Medal. Silver. First Size. Julian IP-27. Prucha-47. Choice Extremely Fine.

75.4 mm. 2271.8 grains. Pierced for suspension as typical. A superb medal with a nice, old provenance and clearly used as intended but not severely so. Boldly struck with little wear, but myriad fine nicks and marks as expected of a Native-worn medal. Nuances of the original prooflike texture remain in the fields close to the devices. The obverse is richly toned, in deep mottled green, blue, rose and gray. The reverse is lighter in tone, with mostly light silver accented by faint rose and golden brown. This is classic old cabinet toning, probably formed in the Garrett cabinets at Evergreen House in Baltimore. No serious marks, though a small brown spot on the reverse might be the remnant of an old test mark. With this issue comes the first replacement of the original reverse dies cut for the 1809-dated James Madison medals. It was decided in 1846 that the reverse dies then long in use were no longer in fine enough condition to guarantee a good outcome from any large-scale striking operation. Approval was granted for the reverses of all three sizes to be replaced, and both hubs and dies were made. The director of the Mint reported on December 5, 1846, that the new dies were complete. All the original silver Zachary Taylor medals we have seen were struck using the new reverse die, which differed only slightly from the previous one in the thickness and position of the lettering and also the shape of the letter As, which were pointed on the earlier die and now flat-topped. Michael Hodder commented in Ford XVIII that "Large Taylors are not all that terribly rare," but that is not terribly accurate. Mint records indicate that 149 of them were struck, but few were distributed before the president died in office. Mint records also show that 112 of them were returned to be melted in preparation for the striking of the Millard Fillmore medals. That left just 37 large-size medals issued, a fairly small starting point. Carl Carlson found only four auction records for large-size Taylor medals, and there have been a few appearances since his work was published in 1986. Two examples appeared in the Ford sales. The present writer's survey of medals found just eight original specimens in silver. Five more in silver, from copy dies, have undoubtedly crept into the records of past auction appearances. These can be found in the collections of the ANS, the Gilcrease Museum, the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial at St. Louis and in the Crane Collection at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, while the fifth was in a 1983 Kurt Kreuger sale. These can be identified by their crosslet 4 and a period after the date, and they are seen with two different reverses. The example we have a weight for is also much heavier than the originals for which we have that data, and the piercings are inconsistently placed. Of the eight originals we are aware of, two are in institutional collections, so there are very few collectable ones. This specimen offers quality as well as a famous provenance.

From the E Pluribus Unum Collection. Earlier from Charles Steigerwalt, March 1883 , lot 537 @$35; T. Harrison Garrett ; our (Bowers and Ruddy's) sale of the Garrett Collection, March 1981, lot 1924.