Help with intresting piece.

Help with Spanish American War(?) Piece.

Hey gang!

This crossed my desk this morning and with a little research I am finding some interesting things about this piece... but I'm not sure what it is.



It looks to originally have been mounted on something... plaque... trophy... something else. The front looks to be from the Expositions Universelles in Paris. I would think this is from the 1867 expo and not the 1900... but it is possible. Ok, nothing out of the ordinary there.

The inscription on the reverse is what possibly makes this piece historically significant. The Almirante Oquendo was a Spanish ship that was run aground on July 3rd 1898 in Santiago harbor Cuba after fighting the Americans in the Spanish American war.

Read More Here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_cruiser_Almirante_Oquendo

Is it possible that this small plaque was on something that was on this ship??? How are these 2 events that seem unrelated related?

Thoughts?

 

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Ok, It gets stranger.

It looks like this company "Amedee Thibout & Co" was a French Piano maker...

The obverse of this piece appears also to show fire damage... Ships piano? haha

 

It's certainly an interesting piece. By any chance, is there a designer's name anywhere on the obverse?

I'm wondering if the blackened obverse may have been due to the medal being mounted on one of the ship's timbers. The wood used to be treated with creosote to protect it from the salt air & water.

Chris

 

I almost forgot! Is it my imagination or is there the remnants of a word on the reverse between 10 & 11 o'clock? Whoever engraved the ship's name on it may have ground down the reverse for that purpose.

Chris

 

In hand I see what you are talking about but it looks like just some pitting. possibly from heat?

And I see no makers mark for the medal.

 

I still think it may have been ground down. It looks like there is just a hint of the reverse rim remaining at the bottom.

Chris

 

I don't see anything in hand. These types of mounted plaques are typically one sided. The holes were for nails to mount it on something larger. I see them a lot when dealing with WWI & WWII German militaria... the Germans sure loved their plaques hahaha!

 

Sometimes I have made good use of tracing paper and graphite to bring out any possible worn down details.

Jim

 

I've been following this tread, I'm totally intrigued. I can't wait to see how it pans out!

 

Uniface medals are commonly struck for the purpose of giving the artist an idea of what it will look like and also where he/she needs to enhance the details.

The two exposition dates, Paris - 1867 & Vienna - 1873, in all likelihood, are the two that this businessman attended and this medal was probably used as an advertising handout. I also doubt that he would have utilized only one side, and the artisit commissioned to design it probably was not as concerned about the finished product to go to the added expense of having a test strike produced. I seriously doubt that this medal was intended to be uniface for the purpose of the reverse engraving to commemorate an event which took place 25 years later.

It is more likely that a member of the crew, possibly an officer, had this medal and decided to use it as a remembrance of the ship by having the reverse design removed for the engraving.

Chris

 

I will respectfully disagree.

This is not intended to be a medal at all. This was designed to be a plaque or something similar... it was probably attached to something that the company made. Do a google search for the "Amedee Thibout & Co" There is at least 1 other similar but not exactly the same uniface plaque that I found with just a few clicks. Another thing you can see that lends one to believe that this piece was made uniface is the extra metal around the holes on the reverse which means that the reverse was blank when the holes were drilled... if someone removed the reverse the metal burs would have been removed then as well. I am very confident that the engraving is the only thing that has ever been on the back of this piece.

 

Probably a mystery we'll never solve for sure but I'd have to agree with Matt that a likely scenario is a member of the ships crew took it with him when he left the ship. The ship didn't sink but ran aground so he would have had time to take it as a souvenir. Also it looks like the damage on the rim could have happened from prying it off of something with the struck side facing out.

 

Just for the heck of it I have EMailed the Barcelona Maritime Museum in the hopes of speaking with someone about this piece.

 

Also if you read the Wikipedia article it appears that the ship stayed there for some time. It looks like it was surveyed by the Americans after the war ended for possible salvage and determined that it was beyond salvage. Maybe it was taken then... But I would suspect it was taken closer to the time of the ships running aground... if it would have been exposed to seawater for quite some time and we all know what that would do to copper or bronze.

 

And that could explain how it ended up here in the U.S.

 

Sorry about not responding right away. I got sidetracked yesterday evening.

Well, I think the only thing we do agree on is that the holes were made sometime after the medal was struck.

I'll be interested in knowing any information you're able to acquire about the ship, but I think the only way we will ever settle our difference of opinion regarding the medal is if we can find some old photographs or advertising literature that shows pictures of any of Monsieur Thibaut's pianos with such a medal, regardless of metallic composition, attached to them.

Chris

 

Nice find Matt!!!:thumb:
this one I have only read what u find out about it

 

Let's be sure to lay out everything we know here - the original piece MUST have been struck 1873-1898, which is actually a reasonably narrow window. Furthermore, we know it was an English speaker who engraved the reverse, so either an American or a Brit (but most probably an American). We know what the Almirante Oquindo was. And finally, we know that Thibout could refer to a French piano maker.

Next, you should figure out precisely what the "Universal Expositions" were in Paris and Vienna in 1867/1873.

Honestly, this reminds me a bit of those medallions you see on whiskey labels.

 

It is almost a given that the medal was made in France, and I'm wondering if it was struck by the Monnaies de Paris. If so, there would be a mintmark and possibly metallic composition (bronze?) on the edge. The Paris Mint did not adopt the cornucopia as a permanent mintmark for medals until 1880.

Also, the Universal Exposition was the equivalent of what we call the "World's Fair", and I have numerous French medals for various years of the "Exposition Universelle". Note that on the medal advertising Thibaut's company it has "Exposition Universelles" with both the dates for Paris & Vienna. The other medal which Dutch mentioned had only the date for Paris (1867). This is why I think these were medals that were made as handouts or to sell at those expositions just like the merchants and businesses who had the so-called dollars produced for the Columbian Exposition.

This is also why I contend that these medals were actually uniface test strikes, and the holes were subsequently added by someone else for mounting purposes.

Chris

 

The simplest scenario is usually the correct one.

I think this was attached to an old piano in Europe.
One of the surviviors came back, and he, or a relative wanting to honor him, pryed the item off an old piano and used the back side to have the engraving done and attached it to a plaque or similar item to be hung on the veteran's wall/shelf.
Simple enough.
There is nothing to explain how this thing would be on a warship and the only thing that actually even suggests a connection is the engraving. It is obvious the engraving was done post-mortem of the ship since it has the date of the ship's last day of service, so the engraving was not done to tie the item to the ship while it was actually in service.

Simple enough.