Lusterrules So-Called Dollars

Owner Comments:

The first examples of World’s Columbian Exposition Official Medals were struck in a metal called oreide, which is an alloy of copper, tin and zinc. Soon after the sale of the medals began, mint officials found that handling the medals was causing unattractive discoloration and switched to striking the medals in gold plated brass. A little less than 32,000 of the oreide medals were sold before the switch, making them much rarer than the gold-plated pieces. This medal is an extraordinary example of one of these early oreide strikings. Both its obverse and reverse display excellent cartwheel luster and beautiful shades of red and blue along the entirety of their periphery when tilted or rotated under a light. It is also the “lower flag” variety. Shevlin & Hyder catalog this medal as SH 6-2 OR in their book “So-Called Dollars Volume 1: United States Expositions” with a rarity of R6 (21-75 known). NGC has graded this medal MS-65. Seven examples of HK-155 have been graded higher by NGC; however, they make no distinction between the oreide examples and the gold-plated examples in their census, so unless any of those seven are also made of oreide, this piece may well be the finest known example.