Good evening! I've had this piece for a while now, sitting in a bin with some other interesting stuff - just getting around to poking through it and would like to find out more about it (if anyone here can add some useful information.) Here's what I know: Diameter: 76mm Weight: 80g Obverse: Ville de Chimay Chimay is a Walloon municipality in the Belgian province of Hainaut (Wikipedia.) Reverse: Concours general de l'enseignement du degré supérieur / Athénée Royale de Chimay / Botte Edgard (assuming this is the name of the student) / de manage élevé de 4ieme (4th, or quatrième) laline (or is this latin?) 2e (second, or deuxième) mention honorable en français So, from what my high school french tells me, this is a secondary school award (for someone named Edgard Botte) in either French or Latin? Can anyone tell me a general time period this medal would have been awarded, or anything more about my translation? Thank you!
Very cool. My translation of the engraving is basically what you wrote. Something along the lines of "Honorable Mention in 4th level Latin for Botte Edgard". I'm assuming French-Latin.
Unfortunately, without the name of the artist or the company that made the medal, the OP has only an image of the medal to help identify it. I like medals, but I'm not that good. @stldanceartist - Is there anything stamped on the edge? Chris
Unfortunately, there are only a couple tiny holes on the outer rim of the casing/frame for the medal. No maker's marks or symbols.
So, the "decorative casing" is not part of the medal? If so, then there may be markings stamped into the actual edge of the medal. (Note: It would be a bad idea to try to remove the medal from the casing.) Are the two small holes in "polar opposite" positions? If so, it could have been mounted within something. I'm only raising these possibilities, hoping that they may help solve this puzzle. Chris
Yes, the two holes are at 3 and 9 o'clock. And I wouldn't dare try to remove the casing haha...I know better than that.
Don't know much about the Belgian/Walloon school system then, but this Edgard Botte (Edgard is the first name) was apparently from Manage. And I think that "Eleve de 4ième latine" means that Edgard was a student in that class. (As for the classe de quatrième in France see here, notably the blue/green image there. ) So Edgard was probably in that Latin class, and got an honorable mention at this contest in French ... Christian
