1776 (1783) AR Medal Betts-615, Libertas Americana MS63+ 认证号42217848, PCGS号151000

This fabulous specimen of the Original Silver Libertas Americana Medal ranks at the 2nd place in the known population. Tracing back to the legendary coin dealer Virgil Michael Brand, this medal passed on to Burdette Garner Johnson after Virgil's death. Sadly, Burdette Johnson was unmarried. During the Great Depression, Johnson took in a young girl named Mary Cruzan who had been abandoned by her parents. He raised and educated her as his own daughter, and Cruzan later inherited the entirety of Johnson's U.S. colonial coin stock. Cruzan's inherited stock was sold at record auction for $1.1 million USD after Cruzan's own death in 1996. Thereafter, Alan Weinberg owned this medal until it passed to The Cardinal Collection Educational Foundation in January 2013. Truly pristine, this specimen also ranks as the heaviest specimen of the known population, coming from a later die state, with die breaks more notable.

Ron Guth

The Libertas Americana medal is one of the most famous and cherished of all the medals relating to American history.  According to the historical record, the brainchild for the medal and its designs was none other than Benjamin Franklin.  In a March 1782 letter to Robert Livingston, U.S. Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Franklin wrote, "This puts me in mind of a medal I have had a mind to strike ... representing the United States by the figure of an infant Hercules in his cradle, strangling the two serpents; and France by that of Minerva, sitting by as his nurse, with her spear and helmet, and her robe specked by a few 'fleurs-de-lis." (quoted in Joseph Loubat's The Medallic History of the United States of America).  Clearly, the final design is a bit more aggressive than Franklin's suggestion, but one gets the point nonetheless. 

The obverse of the medal shows a head of Liberty with flowing hair, facing right, a freedman's cap atop a pole in the background.  This model served as the inspiration for some of the U.S. Pattern coinage of 1792 and for the first U.S. Half Cents in 1793.

Silver versions of the Libertas Americana medal are very rare.  Bronze versions are more common but still valuable and highly prized. The finest silver version certified by PCGS is a single PCGS MS64.