Sunday World Medals

[Ric]

On 2/13/2022 at 2:28 PM, hdesousa said:

This is my oldest marble tournament medal. 1922  (sticker on back is my inventory 'number')

Didn't the National marble championships begin in 1922?  Shouldn't we be celebrating a centennial of sorts?

1 hour ago, Shamrock Marbles said:

1 hour ago, Shamrock Marbles said:

Interesting difference in patina in the section engraved with “Dept of Parks”.

Yours appears to be machined/ground off then engraved with gratuitous nomenclature.

Explanation for the difference in surface condition?

These are interesting medals worthy of discussion and, hopefully, additional examples. So I decided to start a new thread just to keep things better organized and to avoid adding too much extraneous discussion to our "Your Sunday Best" thread.

[Ric]

12 minutes ago, Ric said:

These are interesting medals worthy of discussion and, hopefully, additional examples. So I decided to start a new thread just to keep things better organized and to avoid adding too much extraneous discussion to our "Your Sunday Best" thread.

To me, it looks like the second medal was produced for generic "Vacation Camps", which I am sure where numerous when these medals were cast. Is there any engraving on that one indicating which vacation camp award the medal or what it was awarded for? Does it show wording on the back that includes "Gold Filled" like the first one?

The first medal, appears to have been purposefully produced so that it could be customized to identify the organization awarding the prize. It seems highly unlikely to me that it was "machined/ground off then engraved", since if that were to have been done with the second medal, there would not be a raised platform left upon which to engrave something. It appears that the second medal is already missing the raised ridge that should extend under the word "Camps", and where that material is missing it is flush with the background.

It seems to me that, there is some possibility that either or both of these medals were "recast" from originals. It would be straight forward to recast the second and/or add a raised platform in place of lettering to produce the first.

[wvrons]

Marble medals have always made me shy away. I am convinced that there were fakes made. Even putting old ribbons on new fake medals.  I have not done enough homework to be 100% sure of what I might be buying.  

[Alan]

1 minute ago, wvrons said:

Marble medals have always made me shy away. I am convinced that there were fakes made. Even putting old ribbons on new fake medals.  I have not done enough homework to be 100% sure of what I might be buying.  

Scott Patrick had a well-known period of creating fake marble tournament medals.

[Ric]

@Shamrock Marbles That Ebay listing is pretty sketchy IMO. The photo that you showed is the first in the group of three. The second photo supposedly shows the reverse . . .

It indicates that the medal was made by Dieges & Clust just like Hansel's, but seems to indicate that this one is made of Sterling.

It gets really weird when you look at the third photo in the listing, which appears to show another sterling medal. But it does not look like the same medal shown in the first photo . . .

As you can see, the last medal shown does not appear to be missing the raised line under the "Camps" like the first medal in the first photo seems to be. Otherwise, the first photo might just be a really bad image. It's hard to tell for sure.

Is there any wonder folks worry about reproductions?

I wouldn't touch this listing with a 10 foot pole!