Franklin Mint issues a stunning new medal...

On 10/18/2010 11:05 PM, MKW wrote:
But its a nice well-designed piece

I still don't see how this is piece is "well-designed" or as you said
earlier "stunning." All this is aesthetics and partly subjective, of
course. And your opinion is just as valid as mine or anyone else's. But
let me argue my opinion a bit further.

I'd describe the design -- the obverse design, anyway, which as
mentioned for some strange reason is the only side illustrated -- as
competent at best and probably more accurately as pedestrian,
undistinguished, and boring. There's no creativity with the main obverse
device, no symbolism, and little artistry. It's just a ship on the ocean.

Compare this to what designers did more than 400 years ago with the
coins that the Antocha carried. With the most common cob type, the
pillars and waves type, depicted on its most interesting side were two
pillars and waves with lots of interesting lettering and numbering
interspersed. The pillars represented the Pillars of Hercules, which was
the name given by the ancients to the rocks forming the eastern end of
the Strait of Gibraltar separating the Mediterranean Sea from the
Atlantic Ocean. In the ancient as well as the medieval world, the
Pillars of Hercules were believed to be at the end of the Earth. The
waves represented the world beyond, the previously untraversed ocean
leading to the New World, the exploration (and exploitation) of which
Spain was dominating.

Instead of a staid pictorial representation of a ship as on this medal,
you have a mulileveled symbolic depiction of a world in transition on a
coin that served the purpose of, for better or worse, transferring a
great deal of the mineral wealth of the New World back to the old one.
Rather than spending $37.50 on this boring silver-plated medal of
unknown size and weight with its clumsy thick rim and overlarge
denticles, better to save a little more and buy a genuine all-silver
400-year-old coin that was actually on a treasure ship. You can even buy
a small fraction, the 1/2-real denomination, in decent enough shape for
about the same price as this medal.

Daniel Sedwick, coauthor of the best book about these coins, The
Practical Book of Cobs, is among the reputable dealers who sells these
coins, in his case at both his Web site (www.sedwickcoins.com) and coin
shows. I bought an early shield-type cob, the largest eight-reales
denomination, minted between 1613 and 1616 in Potosí (then Peru, now
Bolivia), from him at an ANA show a few years ago and have read his book
as well. The coin is distinguished for having marvelous detail and by
*not* being a shipwreck/salvage coin, rather having made it back to
Europe (or the Orient) without experiencing the corrosive effects of
ocean water. I haven't yet, but need to photograph it ... on the to-do
list. g

--

Consumer: http://rg.ancients.info/guide
Connoisseur: http://rg.ancients.info/glom
Counterfeit: http://rg.ancients.info/bogos

I'm glad that the Franklin Mint is out of the hands of Moshe Malamud,
a hasidic Jew with a long history of scams. He was the owner of the
Inter-Governmental Philatelic Corporation which cut deals with African
dictators to print "postage stamps" from those countries (some without
post offices) featuring Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, Disney cartoons and
sold in newspaper and Sunday supplement ads to American suckers "for
face value."

Later he bought the Morgan Mint and issued lots of offensive colorized
and gold plated state quarter garbage. He then bought the Franklin
Mint, fired all the employees, sold the minting equipment to the
Chinese (probably now being used for all the ebay fakes) and shut down
the Franklin Mint Museum. Most of the priceless items, such as
Marilyn Monroe's dresses and Jackie Kennedy's jewelry have disappeared
(probably now in Israel.)

Franklin Mint already got rid of minting, etc...under the Resnick
ownership. They were stripping it down through the early 2000's.
Earlier the Resnicks downplayed FM's beautiful minting capabilities to
chase after the masses with low priced plates and items (not all
plates are cheap). The classic 1970's Joe Segel Franklin Mint
weakened in the early 80's under Warner Comm. and ended when the
Resnicks took over. The Resnicks liked Coca Cola Teddy Bears and not
finely minted medals. FM made medals are some of the finest minted
pieces out there...they also used minting to make some fine silver
plates, wall plaques etc in the 70's.
Moshe lead FM with some good idea...some good product..but those ideas
no doubt came from the FM long timers who are still there. The Morgan
Mint guys were just not agressive in creating classy cutting edge
graphics, advertising, and spending the $$$ needed to develope nice
products.
IGCP is a legitimate group that creates stamps for various small
countries...like SoftSky does for coins of the realm. The are
colorful and fun for collectors. There are some really nice Liberian
coins and stamps out there created through these types of orgs.

BTW the reverse of this Atocha Medal has a replica of an Atocha silver
coin.

Then there is this one. http://www.franklinmint.com/Ronald-R...10931C332.aspx