elverno Posted February 17, 2009 Report Share Posted February 17, 2009 41mm Site record. About 1833 an entrepreneur named Brasseux began to acquire original dies of the Napoleonic era and arranged with the French mint to strike them as requested by his customers. He was concerned as a collector himself that these medals could not be differentiated from originals and therefore asked the mint to mark the edges with the word copie. Probably because of this the French mint began to edge mark their restrikes with the mintmaster's mark about the same time. The medal above is one of those copies while the one that follows is an original: 41mm Site record. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thedeadpoint Posted February 17, 2009 Report Share Posted February 17, 2009 I thought the bottom was a worn copy of the restrike but better examination proves me wrong. This is a great example of die wear vs. circulation wear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
constanius Posted February 17, 2009 Report Share Posted February 17, 2009 Beautiful restrike, but I would pick the original everytime. Mind, you did the right thing and got both! The reverse dies are diferrent, most noticable in the 'N' in 'AN' and the '9' and the '0's. Harder to tell if the obverse dies are diferrent. EDITTED: On closer examination, the shape of his nose is diferrent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elverno Posted February 17, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 17, 2009 Good observations. I also just noticed that on the obverse, outer legend the restrike has a double line and the original has a single. This can probably be explained by d'Essling's comment that there were three varieties. Brasseux was collecting dies from their original owners, asking others to donate them to him and in general attempting to revive access to Napoleonic era medallic art. His efforts helped to finally push the government to restore the dies that had been seized under the Bourbons around 1819-1820. When they restored those dies to the mint it was discovered that many had suffered from years of poor handling and neglect and it was decided to begin replacing the dies that could no longer be used to restrike. Toward that end they began a highly political effort to toss business to engravers who were friends of the government even at the expense of not giving the work to the original Napoleonic era engravers. In the period between the restoration of the dies and the adoption of edge marking these "new" dies were used for restrikes. Their differences, and none of them were perfect copies, are often the only way to tell the 1830s restrikes from originals. There was another clue, the artificial patina used on the originals that wasn't available by the 1830s, but that isn't always easy to tell. Here is an example of just one of those later mint re-engravings. The patina on this piece is near perfect compared to an original, though a bit "red" rather than the normal dark chocolate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
constanius Posted February 17, 2009 Report Share Posted February 17, 2009 "Bramsen, following Fellmann in the Tresor claims that the JEU. signature is apocryphal, that the die was actually cut by Brenet. Bramsen either did not read or did not understand the entry in the French mint catalog of 1892, which explains that the die by Jeuffroy was first used in England after 1815, that Brenet copied the die for the French mint (adding his signature to that of Jeuffroy). Thus French strikes will bear both signatures and date from after 1830." Fascinating!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bill Posted February 17, 2009 Report Share Posted February 17, 2009 Have you thought about removing the lacquer on the original piece? It appears that it is nicer than the lacquer makes it appear? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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