This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 11/4/2017
These three offered medals hail from the 1904 St. Louis Exposition Games
(aka, The World's Fair) celebrating the Centennial of the Louisiana
Purchase from Napoleon in 1803. Held from April 30 to December 1, they
were later credited as the 3rd Modern
Olympic Games. Like the 1900 Paris Exposition, the organizers so
under-promoted the Olympic status of the competitions that
many athletes did not know they were participating in Olympic
events.
There are five versions of 1904 World's Fair Exposition award medals, and three are listed here. The Gold (146 grams) and Commemorative (142 g) award medals have
the same triangular-shaped shield look, measuring 2.75" wide and 2.75"
tall and 5 mm thick. The Bronze award medal (184 g) is circular with a diameter of 64 mm and thickness of 5 mm. (The rarest "Grand Prize" example is
listed in Lot
689; the fifth version, squared Silver, was featured in our last auction.)
All three are made of bronze and are
designed by Wienberg. The relief designs are essentially the same, with
an eagle standing on a
podium that reads "Grand Prize Louisiana Purchase Exposition" on the
obverse. The
reverse has "Universal Exposition Saint Louis United States Of America"
and Roman numerals "MCMIV." The Gold presents GVF and comes in its original brown/red presentation case. The Commemorative is VF and Bronze is GVF, in our opinion, and both are uncased.