The Lord's Prayer on a World's Columbian Medalet

The medalet is obviously tiny and as soon as the technology existed to make super small medals, more than a few jumped on this bandwagon. It became popular in the Victorian age to strike the smallest medals possible and advertise them as just that.

Washington was always a popular figure representing the United States and the Lord's Prayer was equally popular on souvenir coins/medals. This one is certainly from the Columbian Expo but there wasn't room to add any brief message at all.

This medal appears to show no wear at all and despite just a little suface dirt I would agree with the person from whom I purchased it that it is uncirculated. If not we would expect to see it slabbed as AU58.

Despite the fact that th major 3rd party grading and authenticating services say that the eye appeal of a coin or medal is NOT a criterion for grading. I've seen this proven many times where a downright black surface of a coin, fully obliterating 90% of the surface, receives a high grade on the slab. This is to say that when you cannot see much of anything with the naked ey apparently someone at PCGS or NGC can study the strike and wear and call it an MS65.

So while a grader wouldn't care, I THINK visually it is a nice medalet; the bit of surface dirt around letters doesn't bother me and wouldn't affect a grader either. I don't see any ear and Washington's hair doesn't show wear.

Regardless of all these facts and opinions, I would say the most important fact is its price--much lower than you could expect to see on any comparable medalet.