1785 Perouse’s Expedition Medal. Milford-Haven 170 var. Bronze, 60 mm. SP-63 (PCGS).

1531.1 grains. Nice glossy chocolate brown with a boldly detailed strike and nice visual appeal. The bronzing is a bit mottled on both sides, but attractively so. Problem free, though struck from a fairly old obverse die with spalling on the portrait and a crack at the left periphery. This is the second obverse used, and is therefore probably of a different die marriage than the medals carried by Jean-François de Galaup La Pérouse when he commanded the first French expedition to circumnavigate the globe. La Perouse had visited North America before - including when he captured British forts in Hudson Bay during the American Revolution - but his admiration of Captain Cook inspired him to pursue a return visit to the continent via the Pacific. His expedition, with two ships named L'Astrolabe and Boussole (just as Cook had the Resolution and Adventure ), took him to Monterey in California, the Alaskan coast, and Hawaii, where he was the first European to visit Maui. He is known to have distributed medals like this one as he visited, and Peter Lane documented one such gift on the shores of Easter Island. While no confirmed gift of this medal is known from North America, owes more to lack of documentation than to a knowledge it didn't happen. This is a very scarce medal, rarer in silver than this composition, but elusive in any form.

From the Richard Margolis Collection.

Estimate: $1000