ALAN WEINBERG ON DAVIS FLIGHT MEDALS

I now own perhaps seven different specimens, most on Mexican 8 reales but two on Bust halves and one on a Seated Dollar (ex-Ford- JJF only owned one specimen). Several have "escaped" me - one in the American Numismatic Society and one sold last year by Heritage with a hanging badge suspension on a Seated Dollar (pictured in The E-Sylum), and of course, the one belonging to Nat Kaminski's family.

All of the specimens in my collection, all acquired individually over many decades, were hand-engraved by the same skilled artisan whom, it may be reasonably assumed, was camped outside of the Greensboro surrender like a Sutler, and engraved departing Confederate soldiers' take-home pay coins for a small price.

I emphatically disagree with Peter Bertram that the coins were engraved over a span of time years later, particularly since all mine and most others seen are all engraved by the same hand (easily discerned) and all very specifically dated down to the day - the 25 or 26th. Moreover, it is difficult to believe that the surrendered rag-tag Confederate soldiers who'd just been told to "go home" with their Mexican 8 real single coin payment from the remaining Confederate Treasury would have kept a Mexican unengraved silver coin in their possession for years later unless it had been specifically hand-engraved as a War memento at the time of Confederate surrender.

However, the Kaminski family specimen pictured in The E-Sylum which started this current conversation was engraved by another hand, in my opinion less skillfully engraved than the 1865 Greensboro pieces, and may have been done some time - perhaps years - later. It is evident that the reverse once had a brooch T-bar pin which was removed, solder remnants being clearly visible on both sides of the coin.

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see: MORE ON ENGRAVED CONFEDERATE DAVIS FLIGHT MEDALS (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v17n15a21.html)

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web