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Organizational
News and Updates
January, 2012:
John Sallay's presentation of
Athena Leading the Way: Her Iconography
on Medals.
For those who couldn't make John's
wonderful talk at the NYINC this January, we have posted his
Power Point presentation in its entirety. The
figures and text can be
viewed here as a pdf file.
January, 2012: Posted by Ben Weiss
New Medal Issued by the Medal
Collectors of America:
Thanks to John Adams who organized
the efforts to make a MCA Club Medal we now have available for
our organization an original, limited edition medal described
below:
Designed by Alexander Shagin, the
medal is 64 mm in diameter and weighs 110 gm. It features a bold
multi-level relief. The
obverse features a muscular artisan,
naked to the waist, striking medals by hand. The
reverse depicts
Apollo driving his chariot through the sky, with the Muse
holding a wreath in her left hand and a trumpet in her right,
which she is blowing to announce the restoration of the art of
medal making. The theme is most appropriate for the first-ever
medal to be sponsored by Medal Collectors of America.
Thirty pieces will be cast in silver
with a price of $200; sixty pieces will be cast in bronze at a
price of $25. The silver examples are almost all sold, but there
are bronze medals that can be purchased by applying to John W.
Adams, 162 Farm Street, Dover, MA, 02030 (jadams@ahh.com).
December, 2011: Posted by Ben
Weiss
MCA Meeting and Presentation in New
York: Our next Semi-annual
Meeting of the Medal Collectors of America will take place at
the New York International Numismatic Convention on Saturday,
January 7, 2012. The meeting will be held at 12:00 noon in the
Sutton Suite, Waldorf Astoria Hotel, 301 Park Avenue, New York,
NY. The highlight of the meeting will be a presentation by our
own John Sallay. The title of his talk is:
Athena Leading the Way: Her Iconography
on Medals. All are invited to
attend.
September, 2011: Posted by Ben
Weiss
National Medals of Science and
Technology announced. A
number of medals were awarded by President Barack Obama for
achievements in Science and Technology. These are
extremely rare and prestigious medals, some equating them to
America's Nobel Prize Medals.
The recipients can be found at
this
LINK
from Scientific American. Images of the National
Medal of Science can be found at this
LINK and the National Medal of
Technology and Innovation at this
LINK. More on these
medals can be found on this
LINK.
July 2011:
Video of Lecture on Medals Promoting Bigotry:
A video
presentation on Medals that Promote Religious and Racial
Intolerance, given at Villanova University by Ben Weiss.
This one-hour presentation reviews the history of intolerance as
chronicled by medallic art.
Click on this LINK to hear and see this lecture.
July 2011: Posted by Ben Weiss
The next meeting of the MCA will be held in Chicago , as part of
the ANA convention, August 16-20, 2011. As a feature of
our meeting, which will be held on
Thursday August 18, at 3 PM, in Room 5, our speaker will be
Tony Lopez, who will present a talk on “Research and Collecting
in the Digital Age”.
All are welcome.
For a complete schedule of the ANA
convention please click on this
LINK.
May 2011: Posted by
Ben Weiss
New additions to our
MCA Advisory Archives: Thanks to Pete Smith, we
have posted one of the earliest editions of the MCA Advisory
(July 2000) on to our Archives section. Pete, who was
editor of the Advisory at that time, generously sent us
this interesting historical edition.
Thanks to John Adams, our
current editor, we have also posted more recent, back issues
of the Advisory. All these can be viewed on our
MCA
Archives section.
February 14, 2011: Posted by Ben
Weiss
Stephen L. Tanenbaum: in Memorium
Stephen L. Tanenbaum was tragically
killed February 11 in New York City. Steve was a giant in his
field and will be sorely missed. The following brief
biography is taken from the Hall of
Fame section of the website of the Civil War Token Society:
Steve Tanenbaum is considered by many to be the most
knowledgeable active person in the field of Civil War tokens. He
has been relied upon for many
decades as a consultant, editor, and contributor to numerous CWT
works. After beginning his CWT collecting journey in 1972, he
became a full-time dealer for tokens in 1981. Steve has handled,
purchased, and built some of the greatest modern-day
collections, although he always considers himself a collector
first. He has discovered hundreds of new varieties, previously
unknown die states, and odd mint errors. Steve has been elected
to eight terms on the Board of Governors, and also filled two
partial terms by appointment. He has served as Vice President of
the Society since 2004.
LINK to story from N.Y. Times
November, 2010: Posted by Ben
Weiss
MCA meeting:
The next meeting of the Medal Collectors of America is scheduled
for Saturday, January 8, 2011 at 12 noon, in the Sutton Suite of the Waldorf
Astoria Hotel as part of the New York International Numismatic
Convention. The highlight of the MCA program will be
devoted to a talk by John W. Adams, whose presentation is
entitled, Admiral Vernon Medals: Collecting by the Book.
All are invited to attend.
September, 2010:
Posted by Ben Weiss
Anne Bentley presents talk:
Anne E. Bentley presented a talk entitled "The Medals of the
American Congress 1776-1781: A History of George Washington's
Personal Set at the Massachusetts Historical Society," at the
Meeting of the Medal Collectors of America held in Boston on
August 12, 2010. A
video of this presentation was kindly
provided by Donald Scarinci.
MCA Annual Awards:
The Medal Collectors of America issued its 2010 Annual Awards
during this year's MCA meeting on August 12, 2010 at the
Massachusetts Historical Society held in conjunction with the
ANA convention in Boston. The Carl Carlson Award went to Mashiko
Nakashima and the Georgia Stamm Chamberlain Award to Skyler
Liechty. (LINK
to
Previous Awardees).
Skyler is an
up-and-coming member of MCA who had published a number of
interesting articles in the MCA Advisory. His specialty is
Western Hemisphere colonial and treaty medals. He has won the
NGC Registry award for his collection of Colonial medals.
Mashiko is the Founder
and Director of New Approach, Inc., a nonprofit organization
that helps emerging artists and encourages public awareness of
unconventional medallic art. She is a Master Lecturer at The
University of the Arts, Philadelphia, where she teaches courses
in stone carving and medallic sculpture. Mashiko is the currrent
USA Delegate for FIDEM (Fédération Internationale de la Médaile
d’Art).
Our hearty
congratulations to both!
Our hearty congratulations to both!
September, 2010: Posted by Ben
Weiss
Scott Goodman to
Display Goetz Medals:
Henry Scott Goodman will be exhibiting a number of medals from his
wonderful collection
of the medals of Karl Goetz in the upcoming “Princess Europa”
exposition to be held in Brussels,
Belgium.
Click here for more
information.
August, 2010: Posted by Ben Weiss
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 the 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.
July, 2010: Posted
by Ben Weiss
Donald Scarinci forwarded this video on
"Ode
to Medals" for our MCA viewers. This original song
was composed and sung by Ron Dutton, UK sculptor and the 2009
Saltus Award winner and Vice President of FIDEM, and Illka
Vionomaa of Finland, President of FIDEM.
June, 2010: Posted
by Ben Weiss
Observations
from FIDEM
Donald Scarinci has
offered to share some of his observations from the 31st
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.
April,
2010: Posted by Ben Weiss
New Book on Admiral
Vernon medals to be published: A
new book entitled
Admiral Vernon Medals- Medals Sometimes Lie
by John Adams, Fernando Chao with the collaboration of Anne
Bentley will soon be published. More information on this
important addition to our medallic literature can be found in
the press release issued
by George Kolbe. A
sample page can also be viewed as a pdf file. Our
heartiest congratulations on this wonderful achievement.
March,
2010: Posted by Ben Weiss
Anne
Bentley to Give Lecture on Medals of the American Congress:
Anne
E. Bentley, Curator of Art at the Massachusetts Historical
Society is scheduled to deliver a lecture at the 2010 Winter
Lecture Series "A Freshly Minted Democracy: Coins and Medals in
Early America" in Deerfield, MA. The Title of her talk is The
Medals of the American Congress 1776-1780: A History of George
Washington's Personal Set at the MHS. For more information
see link to
Historic Deerfield.
December, 2009:
Posted by Ben Weiss
Notice of Meeting and Presentation:
The next meeting of the Medal Collectors of America will be held
on Saturday, January 9, 2010, 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 have as its featured
speaker Benjamin Weiss who will present a talk on
Medallic History of Religious and Racial
Intolerance. All are invited to attend.
December, 2009: Posted by Ben Weiss
Glenn Stein Designs Antarctic Treaty Medal
At the request of the Chairman of the International Board of the
Antarctic Treaty Summit, Glenn Stein has designed a medal to
commemorate the international treaty's first 50 years and the
continued use of Antarctica for only peaceful purposes. Over the
years, a total of 47 nations have become signatories of this
unique document in human history. The medal was struck in bronze
and measures 64 mm in diameter. Only 125 medals were produced,
with several presented at the Smithsonian Institution during the
Summit (November 30-December 3, 2009). The
Obverse
is based on the Summit logo, while
the
Reverse features a central
silhouette of Antarctica surrounded be wording from the Treaty’s
Preamble, and the whole is encircled by representations of
Antarctic animal life. Hearty congratulations, Glenn, on this
outstanding achievement.
November, 2009: Posted by Ben Weiss
MCA
MEDAL AWARDED TO JOHN ADAMS
(submitted by John Sallay)
At the MCA 2009
Annual Meeting in Los Angeles, retiring MCA president John W.
Adams was presented with a large
silver medal as a token of
appreciation for his six years of leadership. Using the
beautiful French reproduction of the
Libertas
Americana medal as a host, the medal has engraved in
cursive script “To John W. Adams; For Noble Dedication to Medal
Collectors” and below the bust “MCA Past President 2003-2009”.
The medal was presented in a
box upon which was engraved John’s
initials. In the August 2009 edition of the MCA
Advisory, John thanked the club with the following note: "Your
retiring president (aka ye editor) was touched to the quick. My
labors on behalf of the Club have been joyful ones; hence, this
medal, which is so beautiful by itself and into which so much
thoughtfulness has been poured, is compensation beyond desert.
Regina and I have placed the medal cum box in a prominent
position in our home. We think of you who have given it to us
often and with great affection.”
October, 2009: Posted by Ben Weiss
Glenn Stein wins Journal Prize
Glenn M. Stein, FRGS,
has been awarded The Journal Prize for 2008-2009, by the Orders
and Medals Research Society of Great Britain. The Prize, which
was established in 2006, recognizes research of a high standard
and contribution to medallic knowledge. His two-part article,
titled The Voyage of HMS Investigator (1850-54): Solving the
Mysteries of the Arctic Meritorious Service and Gallantry
Medals, was published in the September and December 2009 issues
of the Journal of the Orders and Medals Research Society.
The Prize, which
consists of a framed certificate and a cash prize, was announced
at the Society's Convention in London, on September 19, 2009.
Our hearty congratulations.
August, 2009: Posted by
Ben Weiss
The MCA Advisory, published by the
Medal Collectors of America, and edited by John Adams, has been
selected by a panel of judges to receive the third-place ANA
Outstanding Specialty Club Publication Award.
The Outstanding Club Publications Awards will be presented at
the ANA's 118th Anniversary Convention, on Saturday,
August 8 in Room 515A, West Hall A, of the Los Angeles
Convention Center.
Hearty congratulations to John for
editing The Advisory and to all who contributed to this
outstanding publication.
July, 2009:
Posted by Ben Weiss
In Memoriam: Thomas Lautz
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
The Medal Collectors of
America issued its 2009
Annual Awards: The Carl
Carlson Award to Stephen K. Scher and the Georgia Stamm
Chamberlain Award to Anne E. Bentley. Our hearty
congratulations to both!
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.
July, 2008:
Posted by Ben Weiss
Donald Scarinci will be giving a
talk at the ANA Meeting in Baltimore entitled, "The ABC's of Art
Medal Collecting, What Every Collector Should Know". The
presentation is scheduled for Thursday, July 31 at 10:00AM.
Donald was also the international guest speaker at the British
Art Medal Society (BAMS) annual conference in Newcastle,
England, where he gave an illustrated talk entitled, "The
Cypress Tree in the Garden, The Empty Cup, and Collecting
Contemporary Art 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.
December, 2007: Posted
by Ben Weiss
The Medal Collectors of America will have its semi-annual meeting at
the New York International Numismatic Convention on January 12,
2008, at 12 noon, to be held at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, 310 Park Avenue,
New York City. Dr. Ira Rezak will be the featured speaker.
His talk is entitled: A Century of Medals, and
Still Counting : Anniversaries of the Jews in America.
Everyone is welcome to attend!
A new book
entitled Renaissance Medals has been published by the
National Gallery of Art, which houses the finest
collection of Renaissance-era medals in the United States.
The book is authored by John Graham
Pollard, with the assistance of his wife, researcher Maria
Pollard, and of National Gallery of Art associate curator of
sculpture, Eleonora Luciano. This comprehensive catalogue
is available as a two-volume set covering 957 medals.
A lecture on these
medals will be held on January 20, 2008 at the East Building
Auditorium of the National Gallery of Art.
For
more information on this wonderful publication and lecture, see
http://www.nga.gov/press/2007/syscat.shtm
Please
note that Graham Pollard, considered to be the leading authority
on Italian Renaissance medals in the post-war period, died
December 2007. For more on the life and works of this
historic figure of medallic art see:
http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article3276263.ece
November,
2007: Posted by
Ben Weiss
The Medal Collectors of America issues it
Annual Awards: The Carl
Carlson Award to David T. Alexander and the Georgia Stamm
Chamberlain Award to Leonard Augsburger. Hearty
congratulations to both!
October,
2007: Posted by Ben
Weiss
Links to several Medal
Collections on the Web
that may be of interest to medal collectors have been added to
the MCA Website. They can be reached by clicking on
Medal Collections on the Web on the left bar.
October,
2007: Posted by
Ben Weiss
Links to a number of
Medal Organizations important
to medal collectors have been added to the MCA Website.
They can be reached by clicking on Medal Organizations on
the left bar.
July, 2007:Posted
by Ben Weiss
Links to
Annotated Lists of Bibliographic Material Relating to Medals
have been added to the MCA Website (Compiled by Sam Pennington
and Ben
Weiss).
June, 2007: Posted
by Ben Weiss
Thanks to Heath MacAlpine, who
generously provided the images, and Sam Pennington, who posted
them, we have added images to the
Society of Medallists Series of Medals to complete the
series and are in the process of completing the
Hall of Fame for Great Americans Series.
May, 2007:
Posted by Ben Weiss
Thanks to Sam Pennington, additional images of
medals were posted to the
American Art-Union Series of Medals.
April, 2007:
Posted by Ben Weiss
Thanks to Sam Pennington, back issues of the
MCA
Advisory were posted to the MCA website as PDF files.
March, 2007: Posted
by Ben Weiss
Ben
Weiss appointed as new Webmaster for the MCA Website. His
major goals are to make it more useful and widen its readership
by updating it and broadening its scope.
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