What a dazzler! This beautiful specimen is a gold medal from the Ninth German Federal Shooting Festival of 1887 in Frankfurt. The picture was sent to us by a lady named Jessica, who owns the piece.
The medal weighs 16 grams and is 33 mm in diameter. That’s about one-half troy ounce of gold. If gold is selling at $2000 US dollars per ounce, the basic gold value (or melt value, or bullion value, or base value, BV) is about $1000. The price of gold changes every day, so you must look it up at web sites such as kitco.com. But the beauty of this piece, coupled with the overall demand for gold, pushes the sale price well above $1000.
This 'coin' is not really a coin, but a medal awarded in a shooting competition, a Schützenfest. Such non-coin pieces are called exonumia, and we enlisted the services of Rich Hartzog of exonumia.com. Here is Rich's reply to our inquiry:
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I don't have any books on German shooting medals, sorry. A lovely piece. I've never had any gold SM to sell in my auctions. Obviously, the best retail venue would be a German auction house that has had success in the past in selling such a Shooting Medal.
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The pictured medal is exceptional. It is in absolutely pristine condition and has knock-your-socks-off eye appeal. One like it sold for $3800 during a 2005 auction by Spink. Today, a quick search for the medal brings up one sold by Stacks Bowers for $9000 US dollars, a 230 percent increase in 16 years, or 14 percent per year.
Jessica made a good investment!