In one of the Stack's John J. Ford, Jr. auctions, there were two medallions made by Robert Lovett, Jr. for the Washington Light Infantry (WLI), of Charleston, South Carolina. The medals were presented to the 144 members of the WLI in November 1860.

One of the two medals had signs of having been worn by the recipient. The second medal was a high grade example that never had a suspension loop. I have strong reason to believe the second medal was Lovett's memento of the project.

The worn medallion sold for over $600. The unworn unused medallion sold for less than $300. One medal was worn by a Confederate soldier the other was not. Obviously, in this case, historical usage was more important than condition.

As to the "proof" condition of the Polk medal, I specified it descended down through President Millard Fillmore's family and was offered as such along with dozens of other Fillmore presidential ephemera so naturally it was in choice condition. Down through over a century, the choicer the Indian Peace medal, the higher the collector appeal and market value.

See the two John J. Ford, Jr. Stack's sales of Ford's IPM's for a comparison of values between a choice and abused or worn silver IPM. Unless a "beat up" silver IPM can be precisely documented to a specific famous and known Indian chief - and only a handful can - the condition of an IPM is very important to its appeal and value to any institution or collector.

As stamp collectors know, a used stamp is often worth may times what an unused one is worth. To coin or paper money collectors, that is heresy. But there are three good reasons for this. First, many collectors simply prefer a used stamp -- something which actually went through the mail and has some connection to history. To them an unused stamp is an unblossomed flower. Second, in the late 1800's and early 1900's, stamp collecting was very popular, worldwide, but it was a new hobby with little literature. The result was that large numbers of forgeries -- even of common stamps -- were produced for sale to collectors.

One of the biggest counterfeiters, strangely, was the Scott Stamp Company, which used its forgeries to illustrate early editions of its catalogs! Those illustrations have long since been removed, and Scott repented fully. But for collectors, a postmark provides some measure of assurance that the stamp is genuine. Of course, forged postmarks were sometimes added to forged stamps, but this required extra work, and was usually reserved for forgeries of rare stamps.

Third, and perhaps most important, when a used stamp is worth more than an unused one, it is usually because the stamp is simply rare in used condition, but common in unused condition. This is particularly true for Chinese stamps of the 1940's. Due to the wartime and post war inflation, low denomination stamps simply could not be used for postage, but were often sold to stamp dealers for next to nothing. As the pace of inflation increased, new issues of stamps were in use for shorter and shorter periods, so that relatively few got used and even fewer survived and got into collections.

Each of us must answer that question for him/herself.

I had two examples of a rare piece of New Jersey glass works scrip. One was an unsigned, never used remainder, nice and bright. It has been traded off to a fellow collector. The one you see here is the one that remains in my collection.

Another time Steve Tanenbaum and I divvied up a lot of Civil War era scrip. There were duplicate copies of Krause WI-370 SC2 and I gave Steve first pick. He chose the uncirculated remainder. I was happy with the issued note several grades lower. Guess you could put me in the Dave Hirt camp.

It is a matter of show or tell. I am both a collector and a historian. As a farthing collector I hunt for the best condition I can find for show, but I am also a merit badge instructor for the Boy Scouts. I have an English shilling that was spit on for luck by a cab driver receiving his first payment of the day and a Mexican eight real covered with Chinese chop marks. These I take with me to tell the Scouts something about the interesting history of coins. Thus while I am always on the search for English farthings in top condition I am also on the lookout for coins, that in their usage, tell stories that will entertain.