Medallic works of noted U.S. Mint Engraver Christian Gobrecht will be on display at the Liberty Seated Collectors Club bourse table in January during the Florida United Numismatists Convention in Tampa.

The convention is being held Jan. 7 to 10 at the Tampa Convention Center.

The medals are being put on display by LSCC member Benny Haimovitz.

Featured are a Franklin Institute 50-millimeter bronzed copper medal; a 63-millimeter silver medal for the New England Society for Promotion of Manufactures and Mechanic Arts; and a Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association 39-millimeter silver medal. The three medals are part of Haimovitz's collection.

Gobrecht, best known for his designs on the Gobrecht dollar and Seated Liberty coinage, established himself as a respected die sinker and engraver before becoming assistant U.S. Mint engraver in 1835. Gobrecht became the third chief engraver of the United States five years later upon the death of William Kneass.

Franklin Institute medal

Gobrecht designed and engraved the obverse portrait of Benjamin Franklin in 1825 for which he was paid $100, according to Haimovitz. Engraved dies were provided to the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia where the medals were struck. On the reverse, which was not designed by Gobrecht, is the engraved italic text noting Haimovitz's example of the medal was awarded in 1874 to the American Machine Company for their "Crown Clothes Wringer."

New England medal

The largest of Gobrecht's medallic pieces and considered by some numismatists to be Gobrehct's best, the New England Society for Promotion of Manufactures and Mechanic Arts medal is sometimes referred to as the "Archimedes medal" because of the obverse portrait. The 1826 date on the obverse represents the date the society was founded. The medal to be displayed was issued in 1839 to Mrs. Edward Brooks for her embroidery. Her name is engraved at the bottom of the reverse.

Haimovitz notes that the medal, also struck at the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia, is the only one of Gobrecht's medals to bear his hallmark, C.GOBRECHT.F. (for "Christian Gobrecht Fecit," the "Fecit" translating into English from Latin as "made it"), on both the obverse and reverse.

Massachusetts Charitable medal

The Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association employed Gobrecht's design of a seated allegorical female figure and a standing young boy on the obverse of its medal from 1837 until at least 1892, according to Haimovitz.

According to the medal's engraved reverse, the example in Haimovitz's collection was presented pursuant to an 1844 exhibition to a Mrs. Cointreau for her specimen of embroidery.