Bryce Brown passed along notice that Andrew W. Harkness passed away this past summer. He was the author of Agricultural and Mechanical Society Medals of the United States. -Editor

Pete Smith notes that Harkness was president of the Rochester Numismatic Association in 1983, and provided this image of his Presidential medal. Thanks. -Editor

"Andrew W. Harkness joined the Token and Medal Society (TAMS) as member 951 in 1964. I was on the TAMS board in 2014 when he asked for a gold medal in recognition of fifty years of membership. TAMS did not have a fifty year member medal. I recall Kathy Freeland scrambled to provide one. I think we had something plated gold to give to him. I don't know if TAMS ever gave out another fifty year membership medal."

Kathy Freeland and Dave Schenkman confirmed that Andy received one of the first TAMS 50 year pins, and they were gold-plated. -Editor

"On my walk today I was thinking of Andy. His Agricultural medals were impressive."

Gerard Muhl noted that the September-October 2022 RNA News had this article. -Editor

As I approach my 50th year on this project, it has become more and more possible to visualize these pioneers as they settled westward, coast to coast in just 100 years! The medal recipients, and their fellows built the superstructure of this great nation which we still build upon.

They, to be perfectly candid, did it all in a hundred years without a single indoor flush toilet.

In 1969, building a civil war token collection gave me many pleasant hours in the collecting hobby. But, then I discovered a new area of collecting that would fill all of my hobby hours for the next forty years.

Lenard Babin, the great Rochester, New York coin dealer, introduced me to the world of agricultural and mechanical society award medals. He sold me a medal awarded by the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society at their frontier fair in 1870. It had been created for them as an award vehicle. It featured a seated goddess of agriculture (Ceres) on the obverse an area to be used to place the award inscription on the reverse. (This very medal illustrates the type in this book as Wi-10). It had been awarded to a dentist for the Best Exhibition of Practical Dentistry.

I was transfixed. Before me was a unique piece of frontier history that had been abandoned! When I realized the historical importance of what I had stumbled upon, civil war tokens became a thing of the past for me. I returned to Babin to purchase more medals. He had none to offer.

Leonard told me that building a collection of these medals would be very difficult because they were meant to be cherished and held forever. Some occasionally surfaced, however, when the passage of time diluted their importance to families. But, in Babin's long career only a handful of pieces had passed through his shop.

I began my quest by going to every coin show, antique show, and flea market. I read every coin publication advertisement and advertised in them myself., wrote letters to coin dealers all around the country and subscribed to most of the auction houses.

Over about two months, I acquired my second medal (American Institute), and after six months, medals began to come my way.

What I offer on the following pages are the images of each of the different medal types that I have found in 40 years.

"The medal shown on the cover of his book is a presentation piece set in a thermoplastic case usually used to house Daguerreotype and Ambrotype photographs.in the 1850s. That was one of the earliest uses of plastics."

Thanks, everyone. Praise be for collectors like Andy with their singular focus to collect, study and document an area of the hobby for the ultimate benefit of all. -Editor