Exhibit on  "Precious Metals: From Au to Zn" 

This announcement was sent to the webmaster by Anne E. Bentley, MHS Curator of Art.

If you missed the opportunity to visit the exhibition during A.N.A.’s World’s Fair of Money, there is still time to see the Washington-Webster Comitia Americana medals as well as other examples from two hundred nineteen years of numismatic collecting by the Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS).

Although the show features some United States and early Massachusetts silver coinage, the emphasis is definitely on the MHS's medals and tokens, beginning with the Ship Columbia and Washington medals (aka, Washington-Oregon medals) and continuing through the Betts series, with a special nod to Admiral Vernon along the way. William Sumner Appleton’s Washington collection is very well represented, while Franklin and Boston City medals, Harvard medals, and a few more Massachusetts school medals illustrate Malcolm Storer’s Numismatics of Massachusetts.  Anne Bentley, Curator of Art, and John Adams, Guest Curator, have pulled out most of the Society's Indian Peace medals for the U.S. Mint section and topped off the show with an interesting mix of personal and art medals, with military awards and decorations as well. There is a little something for everyone in the show and we hope that many of you will find your way to our end of The Back Bay Fens (The Fens) this coming month.

The exhibit is located at the Massachusetts Historical Society [1154 Boylston Street, Boston (Green Line subway, Hynes Convention Center stop)] until October 2. Monday-Saturday from 1-4 PM;  admission is free.

August, 2010: Posted by Ben Weiss

Videos on The Medal Maker. Wayne Homren kindly sent me this link to his E-Sylum website showing an extremely interesting, four-part series of videos on THE MEDAL MAKER.  The videos were produced by the Medallic Art Company and the script written by Dick Johnson.

Take a look; you won’t be disappointed.

Observations from FIDEM
Donald Scarinci has offered to share some of his observations from the 31^st Fédération Internationale de la Médaille d'Art  (FIDEM) Conference, which is held this year in Tampere, Finland.  You can find his personal impressions as well as links to pictures and video feeds by clicking on the above LINK.

Other information on this conference can be found on the FIDEM website.

We note with sadness the death of the eminent numismatist Thomas Lautz, Director of the large numismatic collection of the Geldgeschichtliches Museum dur Kreissparkasse Köln, in Cologne, Germany. Lautz was born in 1951 in Germany where he studied history and geography. He was a world renowned numismatist who had a broad range of interests and a wide scope of knowledge in numismatics, collecting and publishing many articles about different areas of numismatic themes, including ancient and modern coins and medals. He was especially noted for his study of Pre-Coinage Currencies or Traditional Money of the Pacific regions. For the past several last years he made excursions to some remote Islands of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands as well as to Micronesia (Yap) to study the use of "Traditional Money" in today's life.

As a leading member of EUCOPRIMO, (European Union to Search for, Collect and Preserve Primitive and Curious Money), he was world famous. As a private collector Lautz specialized in Scandinavian coins and medals. At present his collection related to the North pole may be seen in an exposition at the Kreisspakasse Köln, for which he served as curator for so many years.

Thomas Lautz died from an accident while on a trip to China. He will be sorely missed by friends and fellow numismatists alike.

June, 2009:  Posted by Ben Weiss

A group of Historical and Commemorative Medals from the Ben Weiss Collection has been put on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  (see Members' Corner for details).

March, 2009:  Posted by Ben Weiss

Henry Scott Goodman wins Best of Show at 2009 ANA Money Show (see Members' Corner for details).
 

February, 2009: Posted by Ben Weiss

There have been several new additions to our Members Corner: images  and descriptions of a variety of interesting medals from our members, the latest being FIELD DAY MEDALS from the collection of Paul Lajoie. 
Anyone wishing to post all or part of their collection may contact  Ben Weiss.

December, 2008:  Posted by Ben Weiss

Notice of Meeting: The next meeting of the Medal Collectors of America will be held on Saturday, January 10, 2009, at 12 noon in the Sutton Suite of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, as part of the New York International Numismatic Convention. The MCA meeting will highlight a Panel Discussion on Technology and Numismatics, chaired by John Sallay. All are invited to attend.

The MCA Oral History Project is progressing nicely, thanks to the leadership and efforts of several of our members, in particular, John Sallay, John Adams, Mark Schlepphorst and Dick Johnson. We especially thank Mark Schlepphorst, who has done the bulk of the work of editing and providing the audio files, and Dick Johnson, who has conducted extensive interviews. We now have interviews of John Adams conducted by John Sallay, and of Alan Stahl interviewed by Dick Johnson. We currently are in the process of completing these for publication to our website along with other useful material related to the interviews. A number of other Oral Histories of prominent members of the community of Medallic Art is planned. Anyone interested in conducting such interviews please contact John Sally, Mark Schlepphorst or Ben Weiss. Please stay tuned, as more information about this exciting and informative project will be forthcoming in the weeks and months ahead.

An new article entitled Medallic History of Religious and Racial Intolerance : Medals as instruments for promoting bigotry, by Ben Weiss has been published on the website, www.kunstpedia.com. The article traces the repercussions of religious and racial intolerance through the eyes of historical and commemorative medals.

Ben Weiss will be presenting an exhibit at the ANA meeting in Baltimore entitled, "Medals Struck by the Corporation on London (City of London Medals)". The exhibit will be available for viewing during the entirety of the meeting.

All are invited to attend these events of our MCA members. (See below for more details concerning the ANA meeting).

June, 2008: Posted by Ben Weiss

NOTICE OF MEETING. The next meeting of the MCA will be held during the ANA convention in Baltimore, Maryland. Our meeting is scheduled on July 31, 2008, at 3 pm in Room 316. Our speaker will be Jim Cheevers, curator at the U.S. Naval Academy Museum. All are invited to attend.

The ANA Convention, World's Fair of Money, will be held July 30-August 3, 2008 at the Baltimore Convention Center, Baltimore Maryland.

May, 2008: Posted by Ben Weiss

 NEW FEATURE added to Website:

We have added a new feature to our MCA Website which we have called the MEMBERS' CORNER. It can be found as a link from every page of the website.

On this new page we will be posting articles and images and descriptions of the medals that our members wish to share with its readers. Its purpose is to supplement another section on our website called MEDAL COLLECTIONS ON THE WEB, on which links to dozens of medal collections from other web sites can be found.

This new feature is limited to current members of the MCA, so any others wishing to post portions of their collection here should consider joining our organization. (An Application Form may be found online at this website).

Our first contribution to this section, generously provided by John Sallay, are images and brief descriptions of his wonderful collection of American School Medals. While mostly from the United States, they cover schools from around the world. world medals from around the world.

February, 2008:Posted by Ben Weiss

 We note with great sadness the death of Samuel Pennington. Sam was a tireless supporter of numismatics with a particular interest in medals. He ran his own feature, Medals Collector Page of the Maine Antique Digest, and was a regular contributor to several other numismatic ventures on the web and in print. I feel a great personal loss as he was of enormous help in contributing his expertise to our own website. He will be sorely missed.

A lecture on these medals will be held on January 20, 2008 at the East Building Auditorium of the National Gallery of Art.