Beschreibung:

VIII: Original struck gold Medals by Simon, Lord Protector, c. 1655-8, a struck gold medal by T. Simon, armoured and draped bust left, signed tho:simon:f below, olivervs dei gra reipvb angliæ sco et hib & protector, rev. pax qværitvr bello, lion séjant displaying arms, 39mm, 29.68g (Lessen, BNJ 1977, type 1 and pl. xii, 1, this piece; Nathanson p.25; MI I, 409/45; E 188a). Numerous surface and rim marks and scratches, otherwise about extremely fine with reflective fields, extremely rare and important £10,000-£15,000 VIII: Original struck gold Medals by Simon, Lord Protector, c. 1655-8, a struck gold medal by T. Simon, armoured and draped bust left, signed tho:simon:f below, olivervs dei gra reipvb angliæ sco et hib & protector, rev. pax qværitvr bello, lion séjant displaying arms, 39mm, 29.68g (Lessen, BNJ 1977, type 1 and pl. xii, 1, this piece; Nathanson p.25; MI I, 409/45; E 188a). Numerous surface and rim marks and scratches, otherwise about extremely fine with reflective fields, extremely rare and important £10,000-£15,000 Provenance: R. Huth Collection, Part II, Sotheby Auction, 8 April 1927, lot 15; SCMB M311, March 1940 (64049); bt Spink 1966. In Simon’s archive there are invoices for five medals and their recipients, namely two English officers and three ambassadors. The officers were Major Daniel Redman (August 1655) and Colonel John Sadler (September 1655); the ambassadors were the Swedish Agent, who would be either Christer Bonde or less likely Peter Coyet (between June and October 1656), James, Duke of Courland, Rudolf von Strauch (July or August 1657) and the Portuguese ambassador, Adelino José Rodrigues de Mello (January 1657/8). In the 17th century it was normal for a ruler to give out precious awards to diplomats in the form of such items as miniature pictures in jewelled mounts, or gold medals and chains, and Cromwell employed both methods. Hence the bust has drapery to give it an imperial look (like the later crown, where Simon, on paper, originally had Oliver in a plain coat, but the Council altered that to a Caesarean image on the coin). There are two enigmas with this important historical, artistic and numismatic medal. The first is the unsuccessful attempt to correlate the surviving examples with the known recipients (BNJ 1977, p.121). Simon’s invoice and a separate petition for payment covers five medals and their weights with chains: Courland was added to the 1657 Simon account also in the same year, but the Portuguese was in a subsequent petition of his on 13 July 1658. So it is possible that there were other separate official requests for medals and payments. We can only rely on the extant paper records, and these five are all that are known. The surviving medals are: 1. Gold. The present specimen. The lettering is absolutely not bifurcated, meaning a collar was used, and there may possibly be evidence of a witness line, but this is not certain for the edge is scored all round. There is certainly no trace of a loop having been removed. 2. Gold. British Museum, illustrated by Henfrey (pl. i, 6). No discernible witness line and apparently flat letter bases. 3. Gold. Montagu Collection (lot 234), present location unknown. With loop and ring and bifurcated letters. 4. Gold. Murdoch Collection (lot 152), present location also unknown. With bifurcated letters but no loop. 5. Silver. British Museum, ex Hawkins. Bifurcated letters and, with its badly cracked reverse, would have been made by Simon for the record when it was too late to do anything further. Had it been necessary, he could have made a new reverse die. It was made without a collar, which is somewhat surprising, because a collar could have prevented a broken die from completely destroying itself. It is possible that the Montagu and Murdoch specimens are one and the same, if mention of the loop and ring was omitted by the Murdoch cataloguer. The Montagu specimen sold to Spink and the Murdoch to Whelan for £9 more. The Murdoch catalogue annotated