~44.1mm; 39.2gm Also from Germany today. Freidrich Frobel was apparently an educator and a game changer, according to Wikipedia. He gave us Kindergarten, among other delights. I cannot read the reverse text well enough to transcribe it tonight...maybe tomorrow. The obverse legend is in an odd font. One of you may have better luck than I've had in figuring it out. No mint date, though it could have been 1952, the centennial of his death. The reverse may tell that, if I could but read it. Any thoughts about age?
Cannot read the entire text, but the first words of the reverse are "Aus dem Programm der SED" ("From the SED program" - the SED was the dominating party in the GDR). The bigger words in the text are "Alles Humanistische u. Revolutionäre wird in der DDR in Ehren bewahrt" which means something like "Everything humanist and revolutionary is preserved in honor in the GDR". Also, at the bottom of that side you see the logo of the Kulturbund. So I guess the medal was issued by the KB, not sure when. The obverse shows a portrait of Friedrich Fröbel; at the bottom of the bust there seems to be a designer signature. The motto below is a Fröbel quote: "Mein Streben sei: Die Menschen ihnen selbst zu geben". Difficult to translate without the context; in a note to a friend, I think, he wrote: "You (should) give bread to people; I (should) aim at giving people to themselves." In 1982 the GDR issued a 5 Mark coin honoring Friedrich Fröbel, by the way: http://img.ma-shops.de/duerr/pic/13064_20120804044_m.jpg But judging from the style of your medal, it will be older than that ... Christian
Tried to find out about the designer; here are two more links regarding your medal. This is a catalog of a Berlin coin dealer http://www.tempelhofer-muenzenhaus.homepage.t-online.de/downloads/137_297x421.pdf - see item #320. And here it is on eBay: http://www.ebay.de/itm/MEDAILLE-FRI...SEI-MENSCHEN-IHNEN-SELBST-GEBEN-/251057677521 (Both sellers are in Germany). Apparently the medal was issued on the occasion of a Kulturbund coin show in 1976 in Neuhaus (today in the state of Thuringia, then in the Suhl district). It was designed by Helmut König http://www.numismatik-online.de/download/helmutkoenig.pdf and minted by a company named Bittner in Gotha. Christian
