Hi, happened upon an Inauguration medal that is dated Mar.4/1909 is this supposed to be William Tafts Inauguration? Its the only thing I could come up with... I'm unfamiliar with these. Its about the size of a dime, seems to be copper and the Lords Prayer is on the back. Thanks for any info

have a picture??

It is not an inaugural 'medal', but might have been issued as a souvenir, sold at the inaugural.

Medal or souvenir?

The official Taft inaugural medal has the president and his vice president on the obverse, their names on the reverse. Does the reverse resemble this medal:



I believe I read about the Lord's Prayer pieces somewhere a long time ago and now I can't remember where. In any event, the Lord's Prayer reverse was used on many small tokens as far as I know. I believe they were meant to demonstrate the ability of the engraver and the maker to reproduce very tiny letters.

The date on your token would make it an inaugural souvenir.

This is the official coronation medal. The initials P.M. are for the designer & engraver Percy Metcalfe.

[quote name='santa' date='Jul 19 2008, 07:31 AM' post='392465']
Medal or souvenir?



From the official S.A. Gov. web-site

"Commemorative Medals - Medals which are issued to commemorate specific events. Until 1917, they took precedence after decorations and before campaign medals, but since then they have ranked between campaign medals and long service medals (except for a few years in the 1980s, when police commemorative medals were ranked at the very end of the row, after all other categories of award).
South African commemorative medals have been: the Union of South Africa Commemoration Medal (1910), the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal (1953), the SA Police 75th Anniversary Commemoration Medal (1988), the Unitas Medal (1994), the SA Police Service Amalgamation Medal, and the SAPS Ten Year Commemoration Medal (2004)"

This would appear to be a South African Commemorative Medal for E.R.II Coronation, I could not find an image and I was puzzled why it only mentioned Capetown and not S.A. But I found an image of the previous coronation medal and it only had Capetown on it. So I believe that what you have is a South African Commemorative Medal

It is remarkable. Thanks for the full answer.

At other forum to me have shown here such photo - the same face sheet, and return differs.

With a lot of the coronation medals you had issues that did not originate from the goverment, people wanted something to commemerate these events so private companies made them, local councils and even local communities commisioned medals LOL there are tons of different ones out there to collect.
Many orders would be placed with one or two companies so the head would be the same but the reverse design differd
Have a look at the Queen Victoria medals for her jubillee etc I think just about every county, town, city in the UK had a version out LOL never mind the official ones or those from the colonies

Here today has seen a similar kind a medal..