The Young Numismatist auction is a fundraiser held at the ANA Summer Seminar to help fund YN Summer Seminar scholarships. All of the auction items are donated and no one is looking to get a "good deal" on anything they purchase. However, being new to the Summer Seminar and YN auctions, I didn't know that various bidding antics were quite typical and that there were actually "no rules" during the auctions! So when I saw this medal come up for bid, I raised my bidder number, but then someone else began bidding on it. What I didn't know was that my good buddy Todd Pollock was the other bidder and that he was using a "counterfeit" bidder number he had created of MY OWN bidder number - which meant in essence, I was bidding against myself! Once I discovered that the other bidder was Todd and that he was using my own number, he "graciously" dropped out, but there was another real bidder, so we both kept bidding higher and higher, until finally I won out. This is the beautiful Cathedral medal that I won: It depicts both the interior and exterior of the Church of St. Genevieve (Pantheon) in striking detail. The building depicted was first built as a Cathedral to honor St. Genevieve, a Saint who in 451 supposedly led a “prayer marathon” that saved the city of Paris from Atilla and the Huns. The Cathedral was secularized during the French Revolution, changing its name to the Pantheon. It then served as a burial site for distinguished French citizens such as Voltaire, Jean-Paul Marat and Jean0Jacques Rousseau. This large medal itself features incredible attention to detail and utilizes 3-D perspective on the reverse, making the eye feel it is actually looking deep within the Cathedral while looking at the medal. In 1872, 14 years after completing this medal, Jacques Wiener lost his eyesight due to the strain of making these incredibly detailed pieces. After losing his sight, he was forced to give up his art. However, his legacy lives on through the skills he taught to his brothers, Karl and Leopold Wiener. And here is my bidder number (in blue) and Todd's "counterfeit" bidder number:
That's a terrific story. I would probably do something similar to your friend if my friend were bidding on something that I knew they'd pay up for. After all, it's for a good cause.
Wow that's a beauty! I like medals like this one as well, WTG!! Yeah I'm a sucker for holy medals especially when they're in that good of grade. Catholic upbringing and all. :thumb:
Wow. An extra Wow for the reverse.Thanks for the little bit on the history also. That gave the medal more meaning.
