70mm Bronze Lincoln Medal, Award for Essay Contest

This massive medal is a really wonderful high relief bronze that was prepared specifically as an award medal for high school writers. The reverse is engraved with essayist's name and her high school in the 1925-26 school year. While many different Lincoln awards given for a variety of outstanding performances, writing, art and civic events in 1909 because of the year being the 100th anniversary of Lincoln's birth.

But Lincoln has been a favorite subject for awards in many areas over many years because of the values he represented and his humanity. There has been an inherent interest in making Lincoln the face of many awards for this reason and recipient's have always held their award in greater esteem because it was associated with Lincoln's name and identity.

Collectors could say the same thing. I am quite sure that if the award featured say a state's governor or a different president, it just wouldn't have the cachet and many collecors wouldn't have interest in owning a medal given to a high school student for an outstanding essay. But since the medal features Lincoln, medal collectors tend to have a special interest regardless of the purpose of the award. And, the quality of the artwork/design and striking also carry a lot of weight for collectors.

And the same can be said for sellers: I purchased this piece for all of these reasons. A lot of modern medals featuring Lincoln or anyone else just look amateurish; when one finds a piece of this quality it's an easy decision to buy....for seller or collector.