ANS AMERICA 250 MEDAL PROJECT UPDATE

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The E-Sylum: Volume 28, Number 30, 2025, Article 14

ANS AMERICA 250 MEDAL PROJECT UPDATE

As noted in May, the American Numismatic Society is organizing a project to select and commission a medal commemorating the U.S. Semiquincentennial. Please consider a donation - this is a quality effort to commemorate an important milestone. Here's an update published earlier today, followed by information on the project from our earlier article. -Editor

Help the ANS commemorate the American Semiquincentennial with a Medal!

Alex Krapf writes:

Thanks to a very generous donation that arrived today, as well as some sizable donations that arrived directly at the ANS, we have now crossed the 20% mark. We have enough funds in-hand to start thinking about the outreach to artists. Peter van Alfen and I will start working on the list of artists we wish to approach, as well as a detailed specification of the medal. Which artists we can attract will probably depend at least in part on how much money we can offer them for a design, so we're not rushing into this phase with reckless abandon. By the time we have assembled our list of artists, we will hopefully have an even fuller war chest.

Thank you all for your support that has gotten us to this point. There is still much more to be done, so please keep spreading the word to your friends and historically/artistically/numismatically inclined acquaintances. Every dollar helps, and who knows: maybe your outreach can become the beginning of someone else's medallic obsess..., let's call it "passion."

Here's the background from the effort's GoFundMe page. Please consider a donation - this is a quality effort to commemorate an important milestone. Even if you can't donate yourself, please consider sharing the appeal with your numismatically or historically inclined friends. Small donations from a lot of people can add up and make all the difference. Images are of earlier ANS medals. -Editor

In 2026, the United States of America will celebrate the 250th Anniversary of its independence. This momentous occasion deserves to be commemorated in style!

The American Numismatic Society (ANS) is one of the Nation's oldest cultural institutions. The ANS is a 501(c)(3) organization that was established in 1858 to appreciate and educate the public about coins and medals.

The Society issued its first medal in 1866 to commemorate the nation's assassinated President, Abraham Lincoln. Since then, the ANS has issued around sixty medals, usually in small editions, but always designed by artists who were among the very best sculptors of their day. The ANS medals have ever been a class apart from the mass-produced wares designed for commerce by committee or focus group.

The ANS wants to continue this proud tradition by issuing a beautiful medal to celebrate the American Semiquincentennial, which is what numismatists call a 250th anniversary. As in the past, the medal will be of the highest artistic value and struck in a relatively small mintage.

But the 21st century is very different from the 19th and 20th centuries:

Many art schools do not teach bas-relief sculpture anymore because other forms of artistic expression are more marketable today.
Most organizations cannot afford to or do not want to pay the hefty price for a quality design and the production of dies used to strike the medals.
Many mints that used to produce high-quality art medals have gone out of business, taking their institutional knowledge with them.

The challenges are therefore clear:

To end up with a great medallic design, the ANS has to commission designs from several artists. Whether their designs are selected or not, these artists deserve to be paid for their efforts.
Whether we strike one medal or 10,000, the production cost of the dies from which the medals are struck is the same.
The cost of striking high-relief medals will be higher as we resurrect this nearly lost art.

We need your help to get this project off the ground! Our goal is to create a beautiful, classic art medal to commemorate our nation's anniversary. We believe this is possible, but we cannot do it alone. The ANS is asking you to help us bear the expense of this audacious project.

Our goal is to raise $40,000 by September 2025. The raised funds will help defray the fixed costs of:

Commissioning designs from several artists.
Producing dies in two different sizes.
Marketing and managing project overhead.

This will help us keep the per-medal costs low, making them more affordable for everyone.

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As the ANS is a 501(c)(3) organization, every dollar you donate is tax-deductible.

For more information, or to donate, see:
Help ANS Honor America's 250th Anniversary (https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-ans-honor-americas-250th-anniversary)

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
ANS AMERICA 250 MEDAL PROJECT DONATIONS SOUGHT (https://www.coinbooks.org/v28/esylum_v28n19a12.html)

Wayne Homren, Editor

The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org.

To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com

To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum

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