Newman Portal Search: “Tristram Coffin”

This week a Newman Portal user searched for “Tristram Coffin.” Was this a trade token for a 19th century undertaker?  No, and that would be a bad guess.  An appearance in the Stack’s Bowers March, 2016 Baltimore sale identifies the Tristram Coffin medal as Betts-533, and from there Betts’ American Colonial History Illustrated by Contemporary Medals  gives further information, as supplied by editors Lyman H. Low and William T. R. Marvin:“This Medal was undoubtedly struck under the direction of Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin of the British Navy, who was born in Boston, Mass., in 1750. While it bears the name and an imaginary likeness of one of the early settlers of the Island of Nantucket, we believe the date of its issue was much later than that ascribed to it in Med. Ill. [Medallic Illustrations of the History of Great Britain…., 1885], and that it was struck about the beginning of the present [19th] century. If we are correct, it cannot fairly be placed in this list; but Mr. Betts included it, following the authority cited, and we therefore allow it to remain. Sir Isaac is said to have presented impressions to all male descendants of Tristram bearing his name.”The Stack’s Bowers cataloger notes these medals were actually produced in 1827 by Thomas Halliday in England, making this one of the “youngest” pieces documented in Betts 1894 reference.Link to Stack’s Bowers March, 2016 Baltimore sale: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/auctionlots?AucCoId=3&AuctionId=517117&page=18Link to C. Wyllys Betts’ American Colonial History Illustrated by Contemporary Medals on Newman Portal: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/519282