I'm trying to find out more about this. It seems to be a 1945 UNESCO presentation medal, but it's not among the 55 medals that UNESCO's website lists: http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=25916&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html Any idea what it is or how much it's worth? Diameter is approximately 3 inches, weight is 148 grams.
Can't say I know anything about it, but very cool medal! Have you tried tracking down the artist's initials as one avenue?
Just doing some quick research, the constitution for UNESCO was completed in November 1945 but it wasn't ratified until 1946 and UNESCO treats 1946 as its founding year, so it probably has something to do with just the writing/signing of the constitution, and thus maybe why it doesn't appear as an UNESCO medal since technically UNESCO wasn't around yet. Just a thought.
I'm not sure where to start doing a search like that. Any suggestions? The initials appear to be "LAY" if I'm reading them correctly. So, a Lewis, Lawrence, Liam, Lucas, Lilith, Lola, Logan, or Lexi, perhaps? Also, apparently Google now automatically searches for other tenses of words used in you searches (LAY --> laid). When did it start doing that?! Kinda cool, but annoying in this case.
Art Deco UNESCO education science & culture women standing 1945 medal by LAY http://www.ebay.com/itm/Art-Deco-UN...276?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item487ada494c UNESCO MEDAL 1945 68mm EDUCATION SCIENCE AND CULTURE WOMAN STANDING http://www.ebay.com/itm/UNESCO-MEDA...6&pid=100005&rk=2&rkt=6&sd=310641362769&rt=nc
I did find another of these listed on eBay, with the suggestion that it was minted in 1971 & engraved by a Georges Lay (citing Bibliographie : voir CGMP p1170 vol4.). Can't seem to find much on Georges Lay other than the fact that he worked/works for Monnaie de Paris: http://www.monnaiedeparis.fr/en_US/...eableID=aHGsE6zmSxsAAAFHF2EVbAie&PageNumber=6 I've not tried using artists to identify a coin or medal before. I didn't expect it to be particularly fruitful, as it can sometimes be hard to find out anything about the engravers behind ever fairly well known coins, but I'm holding out hope. What resources would list an artist's oeuvre (or, if I'm using the wrong term, their complete body of work)? Before I posted, I did try searching the French version of Wikipedia, and turned up the following (I presume George & Georges were the same engraver): https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lay Would this be his "Médaille La terre"?
