1971 James Berry Medallion

[NZCoinerrors]

Finally got around to taking photos of this significant New Zealand commemorative medallion before I have to look at selling it at a club meeting this weekend.

This is a self portrait of James Berry in his study / office over looking Wellington harbor with a number of New Zealand decimal coin designs that he produced on the wall / desk.  James Berry was responsible for the designing the NZ decimal coins and a huge number of NZ stamp issues at the time.  He was a great contributor to the Royal Numismatic Society with people still talking about him today.

This medallion is rather large being 63.45 mm in diameter and weighing 197.86 grams of toned sterling silver and produced by the Franklin Mint in 1971.



 

[purplepennyhunter]

Wow, very nice.

[markn]

How much would something like that be worth?

[NZCoinerrors]

It is catalogued at $450 but is not often seen in New Zealand as most of them went to colletors in the US originally.  I don't think I have a recorded price of one being sold in New Zealand so who knows.  I paid close to catalogue price for it a we whIle ago and don't really want to sell it lol but family first :-)

[purplepennyhunter]

I just had a look around the internet and found this eBay
Comes with a fancy marble stand. What is the mintage?
I was thinking about James Berry and recalled a fact I had to check on first before posting. He had been on an overseas trip in 1979 and had returned to Auckland to spend some time with his daughter before boarding a plane bound for Wellington (home). Sadly he had a heart attack and died on the plane.

He has designed over 200 stamps and was an authority on Captain Cook designing many medals on the subject too.

[NZCoinerrors]

Yes that one has been on ebay since I can remember lol.  I also have the stand thing for mine and I do know of another person that has the stand but not sure if they all came with these but they are a great way to display the medal

Mintage was reported to be up to 1500 and was the second largest mintage for the series it was part of and was issued at $50.