The E-Sylum:  Volume 8, Number 27, July 3, 2005, Article 9

CHARLES CUSHING WRIGHT INFORMATION SOUGHT

Katie Jaeger writes: "I am finishing off researching a short bio
of Charles Cushing Wright. On a list of specimens donated to
the New York Public Library in 1939 by one of Wright's
descendants, I found the descendant had written the following
comment beside the listing for the Charles Cotesworth Pinckney
medal of 1820:

"The first die sunk in steel by an American artist in the U.S."

Then in Hibler-Kappen's work on So-Called Dollars, p. 3,
in the description of Wright's Erie Canal Medal, they refer to
Wright as "America's first die sinker," prompting me to wonder
if there are any earlier examples of an American-born die
sinker creating steel dies for medals, coins, or anything else.

I had the opportunity to do some new archival research and
discovered an answer to my own question: In the New York
American of Jan. 25, 1830, in an announcement that C.C.
Wright had embarked on a series of medals of Washington,
the writer noted that Wright was "the first artist in this country
who engraved medal likenesses on steel". That seems a more
plausible statement. So ... Does anyone know of an
American die-sinker placing a portrait likeness on a medal
die, prior to 1820?"

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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