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The E-Sylum:  Volume 4, Number 39, September 23, 2001, Article 8

LITTLE-KNOWN FACTS ON THE CARNEGIE HERO MEDALS.    

  Dick Johnson writes: "Few numismatists know the background   
  on the Carnegie Hero Medal.  After the Carnegie Medal   
  Committee was established in 1904 they chose Charles Osborne,   
  a virtual unknown artist -- then and still! -- to design the medal.   
  He did this and patented the design in his name 11 December   
  1905.    

  To manufacture the medal the Committee chose J.E. Caldwell   
  Jewelry firm of Philadelphia (perhaps with an office then in   
  Pittsburgh where the committee was located). While Caldwell   
  had made badges prior to 1905 (no medals), their work was   
  not in the same class with the medallic productions of Tiffany   
  or Gorham of New York City. (Medallic Art Company was   
  not in existence in 1905.)    

  Osborne's design was modeled by Charles F. Hamann,   
  another little-known artist, and since Caldwell did not have   
  diemaking equipment, they commissioned Whiting Manufacturing   
  Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut, to make the Carnegie   
  Medal dies. Caldwell struck the medals, in 1905 and ever   
  since to my knowledge.    

  Interestingly enough, Andrew Carnegie established similar   
  funds in other countries, with locally-produced Hero Medals.   
  [See the Country list on the Committee's website.]  The   
  Italian version of the Carnegie Hero Medal is a stunning work   
  of medallic art with the best portrait of Carnegie I have ever   
  seen. (Oh, if only the American version was as handsome!)    

  The American medal design was pedestrian, uninspired.   
  Decades later Medallic Art Company offered to replace   
  their Carnegie medal with a far more artistic medallic work   
  of art. I remember the vice president of sales futile comment   
  after returning from a meeting with the Committee, "the   
  proposal fell on deaf ears of a bunch of lawyers sitting in an   
  office in Pittsburgh!"    

  The American Numismatic Society acquired an American   
  Carnegie Hero Fund Medal specimen for their collections  
  in 1908. The U.S. Mint Collection had received a specimen   
  perhaps as early and was recorded and cataloged by Thomas   
  Louis Comparette in the 1912 edition of his "Catalogue of   
  Coins, Tokens, and Medals in the Numismatic Collection of   
  the Mint of the United States at Philadelphia." (The Mint   
  Collection was ultimately transferred to the Smithsonian   
  Institution for the National Numismatic Collection in 1923.)    

  For numismatic bibliophiles, David Gladfelter's article, "A  
  Tribute to Heroes: The Carnegie Medal" in the TAMS Journal   
  (June 1975, pages 93-94), is quite interesting (and is the 
  only numismatic reference in the Bibliography on the   
  Committee's website)."   

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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