VOCABULARY TERMS: REGISTRY, REGULATED GOLD

Registry. A list of subscribers to limited issue objects recorded by serial number, or a list of owners of individual medals. Listing the names in a registry exists only as far as original purchasers or owners; obviously these people can dispose of their medals without notifying or changing the registry. Also issuers maintain a registry for items, as key tag medals, which bear a serial number on the back (often with a statement to drop the ring of keys in a mailbox, the issuer will guarantee postage). The medals are issued with a card bearing the same number as stamped on the medal with request to mail the card back to the issuer. Then lost keys can be returned to the owner by use of this registry.

Access to a registry would be useful in traceable research, or in compiling a pedigree or provenance (for more valuable medals). Registries of these medal owners have frequently been created but are usually destroyed when the issuers go out of business (these lists are so seldom archived that this research can rarely occur).

Regulated Gold. In Colonial American era a practice of identifying full weight of a gold coin by counterstamp of a private firm. The custom was short lived and existing coins with such a COUNTERSTAMP are exceedingly rare. The famed New York goldsmith Ephraim Brasher placed his EG initial punch mark on gold coins he guaranteed full weight. While this is observed only on gold coins, the practice is somewhat comparable to CHOP MARKS in the Orient where it was more prevalent on silver coins. See also PLUG, SHROFF.

To read the complete entry on the Newman Numismatic Portal, see:
Registry (https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/dictionarydetail/516609)

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