When trying to determine value of medals, many factors should be considered, which can sometimes overwhelm new collectors.
Medals are a very broad field, and condition and rarity, generally the keys to coin prices, are just among the first of several factors to consider with medals.
"The field of medals is so broad that it's tough to talk about it as a monolith," according to John Kraljevich, an expert in coins and exonumia. "Renaissance portrait pieces and 'so-called dollars' have nearly nothing in common though both fall under the grand rubric of 'medals' – so it's easy for a beginner to get overwhelmed within such a massive field."
Coin World asked several experts to weigh in on what factors affect medal prices and how valuing medals is different than pricing coins.
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Images courtesy of American Numismatic Rarities. Condition is not always an important factor when trying to price medals, but the 1782 Libertas Americana medal is a notable exception, according to one expert. Collectors tend to seek gem examples of the medal, which aren't any rarer than they were 20 years ago but are certainly more expensive.
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Collecting by topic
Because the field of medal collecting is so broad, collectors like to categorize and collect by topic.
Topical medals of interest to many collectors will be highly sought, according to longtime dealer Rich Hartzog. "A unique medal about something that nobody cares about might languish at $10," he said.
Popular topics include Indian peace medals, nudes, famous people, scientists and medical medals, and also medals of certain issuers, Hartzog said.
Some medals have appeal across several categories. These "crossover" medals are even more highly sought than the "popular topics" medals, according to D. Wayne Johnson, a former medals dealer (Johnson & Jensen), author and expert.
He said the popularity of a topic, the importance of the medal to collectors of that topic and the resulting number of collectors vying for the medal are all factors in the valuation of such crossover pieces.
Alan V. Weinberg, longtime collector and expert, said one medal with crossover appeal that stands out is the Augustus Saint-Gaudens-designed, Tiffany-struck Theodore Roosevelt bronze official inaugural medal.
According to Weinberg, at least six different examples of this medal have appeared at auction in the past three years. "Only 125 were struck but my guess is 95 percent of the original mintage is still extant," Weinberg writes. "So it is not a 'rare' medal, yet it has consistently brought $25,000 to $40,000+. Why?"
Weinberg writes that the medal appeals to collectors of inaugural ephemera, Theodore Roosevelt items, Saint-Gaudens art, Tiffany collectibles, pieces depicting bald eagles, political items and rare "trophy" medals.
Other important factors anyone must consider in attempting to evaluate a medal are the artist, the issuer of the medal, the event noted and its importance, the design execution, the portrait if any and the recipient if it is an award medal, Johnson said.
Beauty and history are important factors in determining value as well, but not the overriding ones, according to Kraljevich. "Medals can be desirable because they're beautiful, but not all beautiful medals are valuable," he said. "Medals can be desirable because they're historic, but not all valuable medals have a rich history."
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Images courtesy of HeritageAuctions.com. U.S. Assay Commission medals are one area of American medals that have seen interest rise because of the availability of research information, in this case, Medals of the United States Assay Commission: 1860-1977.
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Condition, rarity
Whereas condition and rarity are key factors to valuing coins, that isn't necessarily the case with medals, the experts said.
Weinberg said: "Condition has never been a significant factor in the American medal marketplace – not like coins. An Extremely Fine medal or an Uncirculated medal would not be appreciably different in price or appeal."
The recent popularity of "so-called dollars," medals resembling a United States silver dollar in size and cataloged in the 1963 book So-Called Dollars by Harold Hibler and Charles V. Kappen, is changing that, Weinberg said.
"For decades, so-called dollars were the bane of exonumia, a stale unpopular series 'poisoned' in 1963 by the then ridiculously high H & K prices and the arbitrary inclusion and exclusion of pieces by the book's authors," Weinberg said. "Now, the 'registry' collectors and newly attracted slab collectors pay or at least ask outrageous prices for" so-called dollars assigned high grades and slabbed by grading services "that 10 to 15 years ago couldn't be sold for five percent of what is being asked today. Literally."
Kraljevich notes that, although grade doesn't matter as much with medals, the grading scales are also different.
"Medals tend to come in a more narrow range of preservation than coins do because they did not circulate," he said.
Hartzog cites Indian peace medals as just one area of medal collecting where condition is of less importance, if the medal is rare and desirable.
"A well-worn About Good medal might bring very close to the price of an Extremely Fine medal," he said. "Of course, this is somewhat an exception, as Indian Peace [medal] collectors like the fact that the medal was really used by an Indian. Generally collectors want medals in excellent condition, and will pay a premium for such. [However], rarity does take over, and on a really rare medal, condition is secondary to rarity."
Prices for a lower grade example of a medal that isn't rare, or that "shows up with some frequency" for sale, might be 40 to 60 percent of what a Mint example would sell for, or less, according to Hartzog.
Demand also important factor
Weinberg said exceptions exist to the rule that condition and grade do not matter as much with medals as they do with coins and currency, so long as the medal is undamaged and aesthetically appealing.
The 1782 Libertas Americana medal is a notable exception, according to Weinberg.
"The vast majority of collectors seeking that bronze or silver medal are collectors of classic early American colonial or federal coinage where condition is an important factor," he said.
"Ten years ago or less, a choice silver Libertas Americana medal was worth approximately $10,000 and a bronze approximately $1,000. Now, 10 years later, you can multiply those figures 1,000 percent or more," noting that a silver medal in gem Uncirculated condition sold for nearly $200,000 and a bronze medal in gem Uncirculated realized more than $40,000 at auction.
Kraljevich also highlighted the Libertas Americana medal in discussing supply and demand.
"Libertas Americana medals are no rarer now than they were 20 years ago, but the price is now multiples of what it used to be – this is just increased demand," he said. "On the other hand, Franklin Mint medals are actually rarer now than they used to be but (aside from bullion movements) are in many cases worth less – demand has thus decreased."
Rarity a driving factor
Kraljevich said it's important for new collectors to get a solid understanding of rarity so they don't overpay. "A low population number on a so-called dollar does not make it rare," he said.
However, sometimes a single individual or organization can own the majority of known pieces, making it difficult for other collectors to obtain examples. For example, the series of auctions by Stack's of the John J. Ford Jr. Collection included duplicates of extremely rare medals of the same type, but that doesn't mean they're common, Kraljevich said, because they represented the bulk of the auction appearances for the medal in the last century.
The rarity and availability of an item can drive prices up, Hartzog said, also citing Stack's series of 21 auctions of the John J. Ford Collection.
"Obviously if the item comes up on the market every month or year, there is no sense in paying much more than the market price," Hartzog said. "[However], that is one reason the Ford material brought so much money, that so much of it was legitimately rare, and desirable to many collectors."
According to Weinberg, the rare medal market is markedly thinner than that for coins. "For every 200 serious coin collectors, there is only one serious medal collector. But then medals are considerably rarer than coins," Weinberg said.
Weinberg said that coin collectors have gotten used to rarities selling with regularity, but it's not so easy to acquire rare medals.
"There are very, very few coins that can't be located for sale given unlimited funds and good contacts in the hobby," he said. "I can buy a gold Brasher doubloon, a 1913 nickel, an 1804 dollar, just about any coin with one single day's notice given the right amount of funds and a phone call or two. There are very few exceptions."
However, many dozens of rare American medals are so rare and tightly held that money and contacts are simply not a factor, Weinberg said.
"These medals are truly 'opportunity only' treasures that might become available once or twice in a collector's lifetime."
Books can drive demand
One of the factors affecting demand is the availability of information about a given medal issue or series.
The more people know about the issue, the greater the chance they'll be attracted to it, especially if it has an interesting story.
Lots of collectors collect United States Mint medals and Assay Commission medals, Hartzog said, because of R.W. Julian's research, published in Medals of the United States Mint: the First Century, 1792-1892; and Medals of the United States Assay Commission: 1860-1977 (written with Ernest E. Keusch).
Weinberg selected Medallic Portraits of Washington by Russell Rulau and George Fuld as "extremely complete and quite useful. The pricings are obsolete but still quite useful. [It is] a book to which I refer regularly."
Many references and research books are available for coin collectors, but the material for medal collectors is more limited.
Coin collectors have the "Red Book," the nickname name for A Guide Book of United States Coins, edited by Kenneth Bressett. It is the first book many new coin collectors read.
"I doubt if there will ever [or] could be a Medal Red Book," Johnson said.
That isn't stopping Whitman Publishing, which is publishing A Guide Book of United States Tokens and Medals by Katie Jaeger, due out later this spring.
Sources for pricing data
With the lack of a one-stop source for pricing data, collectors look to auctions and dealer lists for pricing information.
According to Kraljevich, a lot of medals in the American field are common enough and avidly collected enough that they trade on a regular basis, so a database of several appearances over a time span of months or years can help triangulate a current value.
It can be tougher to determine values for rarer medals.
"One sale does not a market make, so more input is needed, such as the general trend of the medal market or the current popularity of the medal's particular market segment," Kraljevich said.
Hartzog cautions new collectors against ascribing too much authority to prices in online Internet sales like eBay.com.
"The lower valued items will bring more than what most medal dealers will sell for, and the rarer, more expensive items generally sell to dealers at a modest fraction of retail value," Hartzog said.
According to Hartzog, serious collectors find eBay is a "great hunting ground for underpriced, better items. I can generally find items I regularly and frequently sell for $2,500, available on eBay for $800 to $1,200 each. These same items might bring $3,000 to $4,000 or more, in an 'upscale' auction."
The price of medals, as with any exonumia, is highly dependent on where an item is being sold, who is selling it, and when. "So much of this material is rare, but the collector is even rarer," Hartzog said.
Hartzog said one of his collecting interests is exonumia from the town where he's located, Rockford, Ill. He secured a rare item for $14.95 on eBay, even though he was willing to pay $325 for it. "If the seller had known more about it, and put it up at a higher minimum bid, I still would have bought it, but I would have paid more," Hartzog said.
Paying 'too much'
Sometimes collectors pay "too much" for an item, Hartzog said.
Reasons for paying too much could be for lack of information about the item's history and value, or rarity could be driving the price high. Either way, acquiring the piece even for "too much" can be beneficial.
"If you do pay 'too much,' you do get material that you might not get otherwise," Hartzog said. "When I started buying some 35 years ago, I paid way too much for a lot of material, and I'm exceedingly happy I did, as most all of it has gone up substantially in value. So, sometimes paying too much is a good thing."
Weinberg has also paid "too much" for items because he couldn't pass them up.
"In many cases, I'd enter an auction thinking a medal I dearly want is worth X dollars and end up paying four times X simply because I knew if I missed this medal, I'd wait a good long time, if ever, for another opportunity. But it's a heck of a lot more 'rewarding' than collecting slabbed Morgan dollars or mint red Lincoln cents."
Some final advice
The experts provided some final advice for collectors considering entering the medals market.
Hartzog said the adage of "buy the book before the coin" applies just the same for medals. He suggested collectors contact dealers for advice on which books to purchase, noting that some out-of-print books are available for loan to members of the American Numismatic Association and the Tokens and Medals Society.
Kraljevich suggests collectors get "a handle" on the particular type of medal they want to collect, and hone in on where such things trade hands – modern art medals trade in a different part of the market than Betts medals do, he said. (Betts medals are early American medals named for C. Wylls Betts, an early cataloger of them).
"Follow the auctions and watch dealer inventories," Kraljevich said. "Develop relationships with the dealers who handle such things on a regular basis and use their knowledge – while being cognizant of the fact that the market has changed a lot in the last 10 years for medals and thus the 'old wisdom' may not be as relevant as it once was."
Weinberg adds a final word about those interested in collecting American medals.
"Simply put, it takes a knowledge of and appreciation for American history and art to collect American medals," he said.
