BOOK REVIEW: OLYMPIC MEDALS AND COINS BY VICTOR GADOURY

A new catalog arrived today from Monaco for my library. It is Olympic Medals and Coins, 510 B.C. - 1994, by Victor Gadoury. It was published in 1996 by Victor Gadoury Publications with ISBN 2-906602-11-6.

Victor was an old friend from our meetings at numismatic shows in Germany when he was in the Canadian Air Force and I was in the U.S. Army. He was discharged in Germany and opened a numismatic business in the beautiful town of Baden-Baden in Bavaria. In later years, my wife loved visiting that town! His ethnic background was French and dreamed of living in France but he ended up in Monaco. I think that was a better choice!

He was into coins, notes and tokens and then started a publishing arm in his business. His catalogs are beautiful!! He could not write all of the catalogs so he co-authored some and had other authors completely write them. He unexpectedly passed away in 1994 at a fairly young age. I miss our regular correspondence about the French colonial pieces of the Indochina area!

This latest addition to my library was just by chance when I noticed it in a book list and contacted Genevieve Brunet in Victor's old firm. Her email is G.Brunet@Gadoury.com. Genevieve replied and told me it had a very few Southeast Asia pieces. This was enough for me so I ordered it and it arrived today. I quickly discovered it was being written by Victor when he passed away and Romolo Vescovi finished it.

The catalog starts off with some history of the games and then into coins minted in Olympia. I am not sure but these are not necessarily Olympic coins but some do exist for those conducted in ancient times and they are not in this catalog.

Before modern coins were minted commemorating the Olympics, the catalog describes and illustrates only the medals, badges, plaques, etc., of the games. Then it gets into coins and it appears there are a lot of them, but the great majority from my region of Southeast Asia are missing. I wrote to Genevive and told her the next edition's author(s) can contact me for them.

For some of my friends interested in wartime Olympic pieces, there are a very few medals minted during WWI, and of course, the Berlin Olympics of 1936. One of my surprises was that Tokyo was selected for the 1940 Olympics, then it was cancelled because of their war with China. But there is one medal for it from Tokyo, and one medal from Finland, and a small Finnish badge too!

The 1944 Olympics were to be in London but they were cancelled and held there in 1948. But there are 50th Anniversary medals issued for 1944! The Korean War did not cancel the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki so there are many pieces for it. Depending on your dates for the Vietnam War, there were at least two Olympics. In recent times, it appears war is not a big enough concern to cancel them.

If you are into the Olympics, I am sure you will want this catalog in your library. If you are into very nicely hardbound catalogs, it and many other Victor Gadoury published catalogs should also be in your library.

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