AirmetTango
Forum Supporter
A few days ago, I was hunting a permission at a "ghost town" site that's now just a farmer's field. The site's been a ton of fun - lots of Indian heads, a couple silvers, a V nickel, cool relics, and miscellaneous copper and brass who-knows-whats scattered everywhere among a lot of iron. You really can't walk more than a few feet without getting an interesting signal of some kind! Anyway, among the many finds that day was a crusty, flat, circular object. A little more than an inch and a half in diameter, it frankly looked like corroded iron - maybe a big knock out plug or similar, it had no detail whatsoever visible. I barely gave it a second thought as I tossed it into my pouch. Tonight I was cleaning off my bench, planning to post pictures of other interesting finds and sorting various others into the throwaway pile when I came across the corroded disk again...I had a bucket of water by my feet to give a quick rinse to some finds, so on an absolute whim I decided to dunk this disk in the water. After that first dunk and some rubbing with my fingers, I was amazed to see an odd, ridged pattern appear on the face of the disk (turned out to be the fence surrounding the Washington Equestrian Statue). My excitement grew as subsequent dunks began to reveal lettering and more detailed designs! The thread hole soon became apparent as well, and after poking the dirt out of it with a toothpick, I now knew I had some sort of medal!
Before long, I could fairly easily make out "Centennial Celebration of the Inauguration" around the edge of the front of the medal. The dates 1789 and 1889 are barely legible, flanking the statue on the front as well, and that's how I was initially able to identify it as a George Washington commemorative. The statue depiction on the front is partially obliterated, but it seems to most closely resemble the Equestrian Statue of George Washington located at Boston Public Garden (see pic below). That statue was dedicated in 1869 and pretty iconic, so it's a possibility.
The back of the medal is were things get even more interesting - the word "MEDAL" gradually became very visible, plus part of an "SO" to the upper left of the "M" in medal to suggest that it once said "SOUVENIR MEDAL" across the top. There was also some scrolling across the middle that was partially obliterated, and I started doing all sorts of mental gymnastics trying to figure out what the full wording might be. Initially I was obsessed with the idea that the part circled in blue in the pic was a place or town name, and the "Co. H." at the end (circled in green below) might be the abbreviation for "Court House". There's a lot of other lettering on the back of the medal, some of it easy to read, most of it barely recognizable. The two other things that are easily read is "2nd" (circled in yellow) and "O. N. G." (circled in red). The best I could come up with was maybe "Ohio National Guard" for ONG.
Then it suddenly dawned on me...all of these letters that I was obsessing over on the back were much cruder than the rest of the lettering on the medal. Like a lightning bolt, I suddenly realized that this part was likely engraved either at the time it was obtained or sometime soon after...this was a "souvenir" after all!!
My bet is that "...HAR..SELL" isn't a place, it's a person! And he was a member of Company H (Co. H.), 2nd Brigade (??...I see a G near there) of the Ohio National Guard either in 1889, or sometime prior! If I can somehow get a hold of a roster for the ONG in those time frames, I might be able to find the name of the medal's original owner, and maybe have an actual name of a resident of the "ghost town"! I see a trip to the library in my near future!!
I hope this one is just as mind-blowing for everyone else as it is for me - and I'm getting more and more excited about it as the night progresses. The medal itself is obviously in really bad shape, but the circumstances behind it (I almost threw it away!) and the potential to tie it to a particular individual is awesome, imo!
Thanks for looking!
Before long, I could fairly easily make out "Centennial Celebration of the Inauguration" around the edge of the front of the medal. The dates 1789 and 1889 are barely legible, flanking the statue on the front as well, and that's how I was initially able to identify it as a George Washington commemorative. The statue depiction on the front is partially obliterated, but it seems to most closely resemble the Equestrian Statue of George Washington located at Boston Public Garden (see pic below). That statue was dedicated in 1869 and pretty iconic, so it's a possibility.
The back of the medal is were things get even more interesting - the word "MEDAL" gradually became very visible, plus part of an "SO" to the upper left of the "M" in medal to suggest that it once said "SOUVENIR MEDAL" across the top. There was also some scrolling across the middle that was partially obliterated, and I started doing all sorts of mental gymnastics trying to figure out what the full wording might be. Initially I was obsessed with the idea that the part circled in blue in the pic was a place or town name, and the "Co. H." at the end (circled in green below) might be the abbreviation for "Court House". There's a lot of other lettering on the back of the medal, some of it easy to read, most of it barely recognizable. The two other things that are easily read is "2nd" (circled in yellow) and "O. N. G." (circled in red). The best I could come up with was maybe "Ohio National Guard" for ONG.
Then it suddenly dawned on me...all of these letters that I was obsessing over on the back were much cruder than the rest of the lettering on the medal. Like a lightning bolt, I suddenly realized that this part was likely engraved either at the time it was obtained or sometime soon after...this was a "souvenir" after all!!
My bet is that "...HAR..SELL" isn't a place, it's a person! And he was a member of Company H (Co. H.), 2nd Brigade (??...I see a G near there) of the Ohio National Guard either in 1889, or sometime prior! If I can somehow get a hold of a roster for the ONG in those time frames, I might be able to find the name of the medal's original owner, and maybe have an actual name of a resident of the "ghost town"! I see a trip to the library in my near future!!
I hope this one is just as mind-blowing for everyone else as it is for me - and I'm getting more and more excited about it as the night progresses. The medal itself is obviously in really bad shape, but the circumstances behind it (I almost threw it away!) and the potential to tie it to a particular individual is awesome, imo!
Thanks for looking!
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