Reimaging my entire Goetz collection

[Goetzdude]

I'm trying to get a new gallery up on my web page and realized that I had to reshoot my entire collection to make it more user friendly. The old images are from a scanner or been so tweaked over the past seven years that I finally decided to bite the bullet and get it done. I have two remaining weeks in my vacation to get the WWI Goetz series done and up on the web with text for each of the 175 pieces.

 

Here's what the new images will more or less be looking like....of course, some medals are more "photogenic" than others with many of the satirical pieces difficult to image due to their rough fabric and patchy patinas. Anyway, I'm hoping to have the new gallery with text up by Jan.5.

 

[Mark Stilson]

Every time I look at those, I know I need to get at least one for my collection.

 

And your website.

[constanius]

Very nice image, good luck with the rest of the reshoot, hope they all turn out as impressive as this one.

[bill]

I wish I was a fly on the wall. What an enjoyable task (even if frustrating at times trying to get the light just right). Enjoy. The product of your labors is a delight for us all.

[hiho]

A huge job but if all the photos turn out as good as the one you posted the end result will be well worth the effort.

[mmarotta]

The medals are stunning. According to the website quoted first here below, the biography of Goetz shows what appears to be a commemorative coin. Is that correct? Also, I was astounded at his long life through difficult times, the two wars, and all that.

 

German medalist and sculptor best known for his satirical medals created during and shortly after the conclusion of World War I. Born in Augsburg, Germany, he studied art in that city under master Johannes Dominal and continued his education and training in Dresden, Leipzig, Berlin, and Düsseldorf until 1897. After spending the subsequent two years in the Netherlands, and after that Paris for five years, he finally settled in Munich where he spent the rest of his years. Karl Goetz was a busy man, enjoying active membership in the Munich's Artist Society, The Numismatic Society, The Ancient Club of Munich, and the Artisan Society for Numismatics in Vienna. Karl Goetz also extended his sculpting and medalist abilities in the area of creating pattern coins for the German Empire and the Weimar Republic. -- biography on Greg Burns' website www.LusitaniaMedal.com

 

"It seems all things Goetz have become expensive. A signed and

annotated first edition of Gunther Keinast's 1968 book 'Medals

of Karl Goetz' brought $1,000+ in a recent George Kolbe auction."

 

"I have often heard that Karl Goetz was the most popular medallist

in Germany during his lifetime. And in the 56 years since his death

he has become the most collected medallist in the world. Both these

statements are probably true. Only if the second part of that

statement is true would a one-man auction of nearly 7,000 items

have been attempted, or been successful and profitable."

PELLEGRINI ON THE GOETZ MEDAL SALE IN KASSEL, GERMANY

The E-Sylum: Volume 9, Number 24, June 11, 2006, Article 33

 

From the years of 1913 to 1923, Goetz worked in his most influential style, and produced a group of 82 medals that are commonly called "the satirical medals." Goetz used the medium of the medal to assess critically people and institutions. Always illustrating the contemporary feeling in Germany, at times his medals presented war events in an intentionally damaging fashion.

 

The war series records a wide range of events, from the first use of mechanical dogs in the war (opus 147) to Italy's withdrawal from the Triple Alliance (opus 148). In the definitive book on Goetz entitled The Medals of Karl Goetz, Gunther. W. Kienast writes: "With his keen sense of pinpointing incident, and his gift for satire, Goetz carved his viewpoint into his medals, delineating all the pertinent detail. But, as after most wars, these deeds were soon filed and forgotten and became food for the historian only, while the medals themselves continue to arouse the interest of the collector and museum curator." Karl Goetz: His World War I Satirical Medals - Steven Roach for PCGS here. (Currently working for Coin World, Steven Roach was an MSNS YN before college and law school. His professional experience includes work for the trust department of Heritage Auctions.)

[banivechi]

Always a pleasure to visit your site.

[Goetzdude]

Always a pleasure to visit your site.

 

 

Thanks but I honestly do have a little shame based on the quality that has been up for a number of years... I've been trying to get a real site up and even went the route of contracting a web designer but that fell through. Now, five years later, I've decided I'm just going to need to get something up and call it good. I do believe that taking small steps, e.g. WWI satiricals with text, first (since they are the most popular with collectors) and then adding more components to the site as I have time will be a smart way to go about it. It obviously wasn't getting done correctly, or at all, in the past.

 

Again, thanks for the kind words but I promise you that there will be a marked improvement in the imagery AND have the text that's been lacking...at least the initial text, then I will add additional info and stories to each of the individual medal (K#) pages. The piece I'm trying to get done now is 180 pages...so you see that it was a bigger bite than I was thinking initially...just like writing a book, but in a coded foreign language too.