(1839) AV Medal Betts-593, Morgan at Cowpens MS(PCGS#898143)

Spring 2022 U.S. Coins Auction

拍卖行

Stack's Bowers

批号

1004

等级

SP63

价格

6,113,194

详细说明

‘The Only Gold Comitia Americana Medal in Private Hands 1781 (1839) Daniel Morgan at Cowpens Medal Authorized by Two Separate Acts of Congress: 1781 and 1836 Struck at the Philadelphia Mint Unique 1781 (1839) Daniel Morgan at Cowpens medal. Gold, 56.2 mm. Dies by Jean-Jacques Barre, after Dupre. Betts-593, Julian MI-7, Loubat 8. SP-63 (PCGS). 56 mm. 4.6 - 5.0 mm thick. 2302.0 grains (149.17 grams, 4.80 troy ounces). Accompanied by the original United States Mint case of issue, red leather with crushed purple velvet interior, tooled in gilt and blind, 89 x 87 mm. When a national treasure from the American Revolution was stolen in a brazen bank heist in 1818, a dutiful heir involved former President Thomas Jefferson and lobbied for an Act of Congress to replace it. This is the medal his decades of persistence achieved, the only example struck, the only gold Comitia Americana medal in private hands, and the only Congressional Gold Medal ever authorized by two separate Acts of Congress. Struck at the Philadelphia Mint in 1839 from dies fashioned in Paris, it is utterly unique. It is offered, here, at auction for the very first time, a majestic testament in gold to the debt owed this nation's first military heroes and the efforts to honor their legacy. Struck in impressive relief and superlative detail, this medal is the finest medallic effort of its age and, perhaps, any other. Taken from Dupre's original work from 1789, the devices stand in bold contrast to the deeply reflective, rich yellow gold fields on both sides. The Philadelphia Mint struck few gold medals in this era (this was the largest since the 1837 striking of the Col. George Croghan medal for the Battle of Sandusky), and special care was clearly taken in preparing its planchet and executing its striking. The centering is precise, and the details were raised by two exacting strikes, right atop each other but visible on both sides. The dies were fresh and in their earliest die state, as expected, as the dies were produced for just one purpose: to coin this exact medal. Fine preparatory finishing and file marks in the die are seen on the border between the interior and exterior rim. Microscopic hints of spalling (sometimes incorrectly called die rust) are seen in the obverse exergue. A few lintmarks are seen, indicating the polishing of the dies prior to striking. The largest of these is between the tops of LI of DANIELI, but the most interesting appears on the edge. It takes a special medal to make sure the die faces are polished and clean, but it takes another order of magnitude to similarly prepare the collar for producing a bright and lustrous edge. The beautiful original case, seen on other unique gold medals from this era (like the one made for Adam Eckfeldt in 1839), served its function perfectly. It not only presented this medal a dramatic backdrop fit for its historic stature, but also preserved it well. The surfaces are watery, lustrous, bright, and free of contact marks. The edges are perfect and unflawed, and the devices show no evidence of wear. Some positively trivial hairlines may be seen, mostly on the obverse. A listing of defects is embarrassing to draft, as all are minor: a shallow vertical scrape below the right side of N in MORGAN, a single nick on the upright of I in EXERCITUS, a thin vertical hairline below V of VINDEX, a trivial nick on the raised rim of the reverse near 3 o'clock. This medal exists because the medal struck in Paris in 1789 was not so carefully preserved. Indeed, it wasn't preserved at all. Daniel Morgan's Comitia Americana Medal The day after Christmas 1779, Sir Henry Clinton and General Charles Cornwallis left British-occupied New York with more than 8,000 men. Their destination was Charleston, South Carolina, and upon their arrival the focus of the Revolutionary War became the struggle to win the hearts, minds, and battlefields of the Carolinas. Clinton and Cornwallis laid siege to Charleston beginning in April 1780, and the following month they controlled the city. Their army made its way to the middle of South Carolina and encamped near the town of Camden, where Horatio Gates, the newly appointed commander of the Southern Department, encountered Cornwallis' force in August 1780. Gates was soundly defeated, his force decimated, his reputation essentially destroyed. Cornwallis and his forces, including reviled Banastre Tarleton, captured the tiny hamlet of Charlotte soon thereafter, then made their way back to winter camp in central South Carolina, in the town of Winnsborough. Following Gates' relief from command, General George Washington dispatched a member of his "military family" to the Southern Department: Nathanael Greene. Greene's strategy revolved not around direct large-scale confrontation, but fleeting contact and costly chases, meant to expose the British and their Loyalist partisans to guerrilla attacks and keep their divided forces far from supply lines. The October 1780 American victory at Kings Mountain, along the North Carolina / South Carolina border, bolstered the Patriot cause in the Upcountry. Greene had made his winter camp in Cheraw, in the eastern Pee Dee region of South Carolina, but a portion of his troops under General Daniel Morgan continued to move through the backcountry. Cornwallis dispatched Tarleton to give chase with a force of just over 1,000 men, mostly British regulars. Morgan chose the place he would permit Tarleton to meet his men: at the Cowpens, a pasture near the North Carolina state line close to modern Spartanburg. Morgan, known for his team of crack riflemen, decided to capitalize upon the British stereotype that American militiamen would quickly retreat. He ordered his militia to do just that, then move to the rear, reform, and wait for Continental regulars to break through the British line. Holding the rear high ground, his plan worked like a charm, finished off by an infantry line held together by Col. John Eager Howard's leadership and a cavalry charge led by Col. William Washington as the denouement. Morgan described his defeat of Tarleton as "a devil of a whipping." Congress agreed, and selected him to receive a gold medal, while both Howard and Washington were awarded silver medals. Only Cowpens and the 1779 reduction of Stony Point were recognized with three medals. After the victory at Cowpens, Greene and Morgan reunited and moved north, meeting Cornwallis at Guilford Court House in March 1781. With his force badly weakened after the battle, Cornwallis marched for Wilmington, on the North Carolina coast, to regroup. His next, and final, stop would be Yorktown. Initially authorized in March 1781, just two months after the epochal battle in the upcountry of South Carolina, the Morgan at Cowpens medal was among the medal projects left incomplete by both Benjamin Franklin and David Humphreys as they came to and left Paris. Upon Humphreys' departure in 1786, the as-yet-unfinished medals authorized by Congress became the sole responsibility of Minister Plenipotentiary to France Thomas Jefferson, assisted by his secretary, William Short. "I have made no contracts for the other four," Humphreys wrote to Jefferson on April 4, 1786, referring to the medal awarded to General George Washington as well as the three designated for the Battle of Cowpens (to Lieutenants William Washington and John Eager Howard, along with General Daniel Morgan). Jefferson contracted with Pierre-Simon-Benjamin Duvivier to accomplish the dies for George Washington's gold medal and the silver medals for Howard and William Washington. For Morgan's medal, he contracted with the leading name in French medallic art, Augustin Dupre. Thomas Jefferson, recalled to the United States to serve as President George Washington's first Secretary of State, carried the gold medal for Gen. Daniel Morgan with him upon his return from Paris in September 1789. On March 25, 1790, Washington transmitted the glittering gold medal to Morgan, then living near the frontier town of Winchester, Virginia. Upon his death in 1802, it was carried to Pittsburgh by his widow and placed in the care of his son-in-law, Col. Presley Neville, who had married Daniel Morgan's oldest daughter, Nancy, in 1782. They had 14 children, of whom Morgan Lafayette Neville was the oldest, born in 1783. Morgan Neville and Pittsburgh's First Bank Robbery Morgan Lafayette Neville grew up in Pittsburgh when the city at the forks of the Allegheny and Monongahela was still on the frontier. As a young man, perhaps emboldened by the adventuresome spirits of his father and maternal grandfather, Neville accompanied a small group of Pittsburghers on what turned out to be the beginnings of Aaron Burr's traitorous expedition of 1806-7. Chastised by the experience, he studied for the bar and became a model citizen: attorney, banker, and journalist. He even served a term as Pittsburgh's sheriff. He gained his greatest renown as a newspaperman while editor of the Pittsburgh Gazette, penning works of fiction like "The Last of the Boatmen," which some consider foundational among Western and pioneer-themed American literature. Neville enjoyed a national reputation in his adult life, wealthy, well-educated, and well-connected politically. He was a leading figure in the history of Pittsburgh and of Cincinnati, where he lived his last decades. Neville was the cashier of Pittsburgh's Farmers and Mechanics Bank when disaster struck on April 6, 1818. The bank was burglarized in the middle of the night "by means of false keys, and a large amount in notes and specie stolen therefrom," according to Neville's Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette. Some months later, the Gazettetold the whole story of the robbery. On the morning of the 7th of April, the cashier on going to the vault to open the doors, found the outside one unlocked but closed. On entering it he discovered the other wide open. From the confusion which appeared in the vault, he was instantly convinced that a robbery had been committed the night before. He summoned the directors, and on examining the state of the bank, it was found that about 104,000 dollars, including 100,000 dollars of their own notes, had been taken. Mr. William Lecky, one of the directors, with that zeal and promptness which has distinguished his conduct through the whole business, immediately got into a skiff and descended the Ohio, accompanied by three or four very enterprising citizens. Unfortunately he started before any suspicion had fallen on the right persons. He overtook the robbers at Wheeling, but without suspecting them. He examined them however, and finding nothing with them to create doubt, he left them and went on to the falls of the Ohio. The thieves were eventually identified the next day and jailed at Neville (a coincidence), a town near Cincinnati. The two men escaped the jail soon thereafter, and just one of them was recaptured a few days later. The thieves were identified as a pair of ne'er-do-well gamblers named Joseph Pluymart and Herman Emmons. They had made off with not only paper money in excess of $100,000, but also a sack full of precious metal, some $3,000 worth of gold and silver. Their take included a quantity of coins and "a number of Hamburgh medals, of uncommonly pure gold, of different devices and impressions, and principally on naval subjects." Most important, the thieves also took "a gold medal granted by the Congress of the United States to Gen. Morgan, commemorative of his gallant services at the battle of the Cowpens. Its weight was about equal to 29 guineas." Neville's entire patrimony and life savings was gone. His bank closed, unable to do business. Morgan's gold medal was foremost among the relics left to his young namesake, an item of importance to both his family and the nation, as well as an object of great value. Neville's bank offered a huge reward for the return of what was stolen: first $1,000, then $3,000 for the loot and $1,000 for the capture of those responsible. While Pluymart promptly escaped custody and ran, Emmons led authorities to a pile of soggy paper money "much injured by the damp" 37 miles downriver from Pittsburgh. Emmons "pointed out the place of concealment, which was among some projecting rocks, near the shore. Here the whole amount, except about $2700 was found." Pluymart was apprehended in early June 1818 at Ogdensburg, New York, along the St. Lawrence River on the Canadian border, carrying "about $5,000 in gold and bills." His crime and subsequent escape from justice had made him notorious nationwide, and newspapers in several states covered advances in the case against him. He broke jail in New York for the second time, and then made the papers time and time and time again for being captured and then escaping, from New York to Montreal to Pittsburgh. Between April 1818 and March 1820, he escaped no fewer than five times! To add even more insult, his final escape, in Pittsburgh in 1820, was from the custody of that city's sheriff: Morgan Neville. He remained on the lam for eight years. (After his conviction, he broke out of jail for the sixth and final time.) Emmons, who helped recover most of the stolen loot, alleged that Pluymart, the mastermind, retired to the hiding spot and claimed some of their ill-gotten gains for himself. Emmons was said to have been surprised that the medal wasn't among the other gold and silver they had hidden under the rocks, but also pondered if it wasn't in the bag of coins that was dropped into the Ohio River when the first party of investigators found them on the water the day after the robbery. In the June 5, 1818 issue, Neville sadly noted in his Gazette "the medal of the cashier is not found." When Pluymart was finally put on trial in 1828, after being nabbed following another heist in Philadelphia, he never testified to the precise disposition of the Morgan medal; had he dropped it into the Ohio, or lost it at Ogdensburg, or melted it down? All he said from the witness stand was "it would be impossible to get the medal. It was beyond human reach, and he was sorry for it." His co-conspirator Emmons testified that he had seen, hidden in the rocks by the river where their loot was stashed "a case that he had seen the medal in. Knew it well." What became of it after that was known only to Pluymart. The medal was never recovered. The Mission to Replace the Morgan Medal Begins Neville, undoubtedly apoplectic, tried to replace his grandfather's gold medal however he could. In his desperation, 18 months after the robbery, he wrote to the retired ex-president who had first had the medal struck: Thomas Jefferson, who was living out his senior citizenship at Monticello. Pittsburg. Decr 10th 1819 Sir. The Motive for my present communication, must plead my Excuse for intruding upon you, & the history of your Life, is a pledge to every American, that the humblest Request will be attended to. I am the Representative of the late General D. Morgan of Virginia, to whom Congress presented a gold Medal for the battle of the Cowpens. This descended to me as the eldest Male Grandchild of this officer. Unfortunately, a Bank, in which the Medal was deposited, was last year robbed, & this with many other valuable articles belonging to me, was taken. I have lost all hopes of recovering it, as I have reason to believe that one of the Robbers threw it into the St Lawrence: I leave it to you, sir, to judge of my mortification since this event. I have determined to petition Congress, through my friend, the honorable Henry Baldwin, to pass a Resolution authorizing me to have one struck at my Expense; as my situation however, at present would not permit me to take advantage of such a resolution, without having the original Die, I have written on the subject to Mr. Gallatin, & to the Marquis de la Fayette, whose Aid de camp, my father the late General Presley Neville was, in '77. Since writing to these gentlemen it has occurred to me that, as the Medals voted by Congress were executed under your direction, you might be able to assist me with your advice; if I be not mistaken you employed on that occasion three artists; DuVivier, Dupré & Gatteaux. My Grandfather's was executed by Dupré. Any information which you may have the goodness to give me as to where these dies were deposited; whose property you consider them; the possibility of my procuring the one I want, & what course I ought to pursue, will be most gratefully acknowledged by me. By gratifying me with a reply to this communication, you will lay me under a most serious obligation. With sincere wishes that your life may be long spared, permit me to offer to you the homage of sincere respect & profound veneration. Morgan Neville Jefferson wrote back quickly, just a week after Neville had sent his initial letter. Monticello Dec. 18. 19 Sir On receipt of your letter of the 10th I turned to my papers respecting the medals given by Congress to certain officers. They charged their minister of finance with procuring them, and he put the execution into the hands of Colo Humphreys when he went to Paris as Secretary of legation. But, he returning before much progress was made, left the completion with me. I had them completed and when I returned from France in 1789, I brought two complete sets & delivered them to General Washington, the one in silver for himself, the others in gold or silver as voted by Congress was for the officers and delivered to Gl Washington to be presented. That to Gl Morgan was of gold. Each die cost 2400℔ and the gold for the medal was 400℔ as an additional charge. Congress had directed copies in silver to be presented to the different Sovereigns of Europe and to the Universities of that quarter & our own. This part of the business being unfinished, was left with Mr. Short and finally I believe dropt. The dies were directed to be deposited in the office of Mr. Grand, banker of the US. and I think they were afterwards directed to be sent here & deposited in the treasury office: but of this I am not sure. If they are not in our Treasury they ought still to be in the office of Mr. Grand. The dies were considered as the property of the US. and if not sent here, can, I imagine be found by our minister at Paris, altho' Mr. Grand be dead long since. A Mr. Gautier succeeded in his house, but retired long since to Geneva is still living as far as I know, and can give information on the subject. Perhaps Mr. Short of Philada can also give some information. This is the sum of my knowledge of the matter which is tendered with the assurances of my respect. Th: Jefferson When Jefferson died in 1826, Neville was no closer to obtaining a replacement medal than he had been in 1818. Through a succession of entreaties with Congressmen, it took more than a decade for Neville's petition to reach the floor of Congress, making its way through the Military Affairs Committee, then the Library Committee, then a select committee, then finally to the floor of the House of Representatives. His first request was introduced by Rep. Walter Forward on January 12, 1824. On January 24, 1835 - eleven years later! - Rep. Edward Everett of Massachusetts finally presented some good news. Mr. E. EVERETT, from the select Joint Library Committee, reported a joint resolution in effect authorizing Morgan Neville to have re-struck, from the original die, a medal, similar to the one presented by Congress to General Morgan, which had been stolen, and which was supposed to have been melted down. The resolution having been read a first and second time, Mr. EVERETT stated that the medal referred to was presented by Congress to General Daniel Morgan, who bequeathed it to the memorialist, Morgan Neville. The memorial of Mr. Neville (upon which this report was founded) set forth that the medal was stolen from a bank in Pittsburgh, some years ago, and that all attempts to recover it had failed. The medal was of gold, very highly valued by the family, and was stated to be worth, intrinsically, thirty-one guineas. The memorialist asks that a new medal may be struck for him from the original die, which is, or ought to be, at the mint, in Philadelphia. He did not ask that this should be done at the expense of the Government; though, under all the circumstances, he (Mr. E.) would be willing that it should be done at the public expense. But, as it would be necessary to commit the resolution in that case, which would delay and endanger its passage, he had preferred to move its engrossment in its present form. The resolution was then ordered to be engrossed for a third reading. A year and a half later, on July 2, 1836, the joint resolution became law. Neville had an Act of Congress authorizing the striking of a new gold medal bearing the image of his grandfather, Daniel Morgan, for his heroism at Cowpens. The law was entitled "An Act to renew the gold medal struck and presented to General Morgan, by order of Congress, in honor of the battle of Cowpens." It was signed into law on July 2, 1836, by President Andrew Jackson. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That in pursuance of the request of Morgan Neville, in his memorial presented at the present session of Congress, the director of the mint, be and he is hereby, authorized and directed to cause to be struck, a gold medal of the intrinsic value of one hundred and fifty dollars, in honor of the battle of the Cowpens, which was fought on the seventeenth day of January, seventeen hundred and eighty-one, to replace the original medal presented by a resolution of the Continental Congress, of March ninth, seventeen hundred and eighty-one, to Brigadier General Daniel Morgan; the said medal to be struck from the original die, and delivered, when executed, to the said Morgan Neville, the lineal heir of General Morgan; the expense of the same to be paid out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated. APPROVED, July 2, 1836. Renewing the Medal With an authorizing act on the books, Neville now had to find the original dies. Discovering they were not at the Philadelphia Mint - and could not be located in Paris either - the expensive effort of creating new dies began. George Washington's own set of Comitia Americana medals, now the crown jewel of the numismatic collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, was then owned by Daniel Webster, who chaired the Senate Finance Committee when Neville's special law passed. Webster agreed to loan Washington's own specimen of the Morgan medal to have a new set of dies prepared. Lewis Cass, the American Minister to France and later a candidate for President, hand carried the medal to Paris, where it was delivered to the engraver Jacques-Jean Barre in October 1838. In the summer of 1839, Barre completed a brand new set of dies, transferring the designs directly off the original medal. The process used to transfer the remarkable detail found in Dupre's dies to the dies prepared by Barre in 1839 was executed brilliantly, and few distinguishing characteristics can be seen between them. (The most notable difference is the lack of the die chip below M of the date MDCCLXXXI, which Barre deftly removed on the newly hubbed dies.) The dies were shipped to Philadelphia and a single gold medal - the present lot - was coined in December 1839. It was said at the time to weigh 4.79 ounces of fine gold. Morgan Neville died on March 2, 1839. He never saw the medal. His lifelong quest for absolution in losing the ultimate family heirloom ended unrequited. But his legacy carried on: through his namesake son and proud string of descendants, through his written works, and through his long-lasting reputation as one of the founders of American pioneer fiction. Secretary of War John Bell, after some delay pondering the medal's rightful owner, presented the renewed Daniel Morgan at Cowpens medal to Neville's son, Morgan Lafayette Neville, Jr., on September 11, 1841. Upon his death in 1855, the medal passed to his son Jesse, then just a child. Perhaps because he grew up without his father, Jesse Neville cherished the medal. He even put it on display in a jewelry store window in Saratoga, New York, his summer vacation destination, in August 1885. A local newspaper breathlessly described the gold medal as "containing $500 worth of that precious metal." An August 1911 front page, first column obituary of Jesse's cousin, Civil War veteran Presley Morgan Neville of Richmond, California, mentions Jesse's ownership of this medal: "this precious heirloom is now in the possession of Jesse B. Neville, a cousin of the deceased, now living in Los Angeles." Jesse Neville died in Santa Monica, California in 1914. At some point after 1914, the medal passed out of the family. According to the history of this medal given to us, it was acquired from a descendent of J. Pierpont Morgan, Jr. Morgan, the wealthy banker and heir to both his father's fortune and philanthropic sensibilities, formed immense collections, many of which have since become part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Morgan, we are told, acquired the medal in the hopes that Daniel Morgan was an ancestor, but upon discovering no familial connection, decided it was no longer appropriate for the family holdings. Just six Congressional Gold Medals were awarded by Congress to heroes of the American Revolution as part of the Comitia Americana series. Gen. George Washington was recognized with the first medal ever authorized by the American Congress, authorized on March 25, 1776, following his successful defense of Boston from British occupation. Washington received his medal in 1789. At the time of his death in 1799, it was valued at $150. In 1876, it was sold by a Washington descendent to the Boston Public Library for $5,000. It remains at the Boston Public Library today. Gen. Horatio Gates was voted a Congressional Gold Medal by Congress on November 4, 1777, for his history-changing victory over the British at Saratoga the previous month. Gates received his medal in 1787. In 1889, a descendent gave his medal to the New-York Historical Society, where it is displayed today. Gen. Anthony Wayne's Congressional Gold Medal, awarded for the 1779 Battle of Stony Point, was the last gold Comitia Americana medal to sell at auction, bringing a record $51,000 at Sotheby Parke-Bernet in June 1978. It was consigned by a descendent, Anthony Wayne Ridgeway, and purchased by the Pennsylvania Society of the Sons of the Revolution. The Society displays the medal at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. The Congressional Gold Medal awarded to Daniel Morgan for the February 1781 Battle of Cowpens was stolen in 1818 and lost. The United States Congress authorized a single gold medal to be struck in Paris to replace it. That medal is the present lot. Gen. Nathanael Greene was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal for the September 1781 Battle of Eutaw Springs in South Carolina, an action credited with helping to delay reinforcements to Cornwallis at Yorktown. Greene died in 1787, before his gold medal arrived from Paris. His medal was given to the executor of his estate, Jeremiah Wadsworth. It descended through Greene's family until 1928, when it was given to the state of Rhode Island. It is now a part of the collection of the Rhode Island Historical Society. Capt. John Paul Jones was the only naval officer to be awarded a Comitia Americana medal. His gold medal was never seen after his death and is presumed to have been melted before his passing in 1792. Jones died alone and intestate, his body left for anonymous burial in a potter's field in Paris. The gold medal on display in Jones' crypt at the United States Naval Academy today was struck at the Philadelphia Mint from the rusted original dies in 1947. Gen. Henry Lee was voted a Congressional Gold Medal for his actions against the British at Paulus Hook, modern day Jersey City, New Jersey. Were his medal struck, he would be the seventh on the list, but no indication can be found that his medal ever existed. The dies were produced at the Philadelphia Mint in 1793 by Joseph Wright, but the reverse proved unusable and the obverse was badly cracked from the moment it was annealed. Mint Director Robert Maskell Patterson reported in 1836, early enough that there remained institutional memory from 1793 in the person of Adam Eckfeldt, that Lee's gold medal had not been struck. The 1839 Daniel Morgan Congressional Gold Medal, Contextualized Stack's Bowers Galleries has been fortunate to set the world record for American historical medals with unique Congressional Gold Medals on two occasions. First, in 2006, Gen. Zachary Taylor's 1848 Congressional Gold Medal awarded for the Battle of Buena Vista in the Mexican-American War brought $460,000. It was the first Congressional Gold Medal to cross the $100,000 barrier, and the highest realization for a Congressional Gold Medal since Anthony Wayne's medal for the 1779 Battle of Stony Point brought $51,000 in a 1978 Sotheby Parke-Bernet sale. More recently, in August 2021, the Congressional Gold Medal awarded to Gen. William Henry Harrison for the 1813 Battle of the Thames brought $600,000 at public auction, setting a new high-water mark for a Congressional Gold Medal. The only silver Paris Mint Daniel Morgan at Cowpens medal in private hands brought $115,000 in our November 2019 sale of the John W. Adams Collection. It had once been the world record holder for an American historical medal, bringing $80,500 in May 2001. Four Paris strikes of the Morgan medal in copper remain in private hands. Two of those medals were included in the Adams Collection, bringing $55,200 and $78,000. The Adams Collection included no silver strikes from the 1839 Morgan dies (or this unique gold strike, of course), but a silver strike from these dies in our November 2021 sale brought $33,600. Barre's dies were kept on deposit at the Philadelphia Mint and employed to strike copies of Morgan's Cowpens medal in silver, gilt bronze, bronze, and white metal. While mintage figures were not kept until after 1855, 96 copper specimens and two more in silver are recorded to have been struck between 1855 and 1904. Their fascinating history, born from the loss of Morgan's own medal, combined with their stunning designs, have made them sought after stars of the Mint medal series today. Two centuries ago, a great American treasure was lost through criminal mischief. One man's dedication to his family's achievements realized its goal: the renewal of his grandfather Daniel Morgan's medal with the striking of a single gold medal that his family could pass on. While Morgan Neville didn't live long enough to hold that golden victory in his hand, we can. It remains a uniquely American prize, with a backstory fit for the cinema. As the only gold Comitia Americana medal that remains privately owned, it represents the pinnacle of the American historical medal field and one of the most significant medallic properties we have ever offered. Provenance: Struck at the Philadelphia Mint in December 1839. Delivered by Secretary of War John Bell to Morgan Lafayette Neville, Jr. (1811-1855), September 1841; Jesse Barker Neville (1851-1914), by descent, 1855; said to have been owned by J. Pierpont Morgan, Jr. (1867-1943); unknown intermediaries; the present consignor. 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