NNP Blog

4 DECEMBER 2021

Medals of the Hall of Fame for Great Americans at New York University

The plethora of medal issues in the 1960s and 1970s, created by the Franklin Mint and others, oversaturated an exhausted collector base with the result that the more artistically worthy works never received their full due. Alexander brings a penetrating light aimed at sorting the wheat from the chaff, and in this case honors the series of medals honoring inductees of the Hall of Frame for Great Americans at New York University. Issued by Medallic Art Company from 1962 until the mid-1970s, the series consists of 94 medals sculpted by some of the best known engravers of the period. Many of these can today be easily acquired on ebay (a quick search reveals 20 “hits”) and other sources for nominal prices. The approach taken by Alexander is similar to his treatment of early 20th century American art medals (American Art Medals, 1909-1995, published by the American Numismatic Society), including metrology, historical context, and critical assessments of each medal.For this project, Alexander contributed text and images to Newman Portal, which were then formatted under NNP sponsorship to accomplish a professional result worthy of the subject matter. Newman Portal invites other authors to similarly collaborate. Newman Portal NNP acknowledges Doug Plasencia and Pat Alexander for photography, and Lianna Spurrier for graphics layout and design.Link to Medals of the Hall of Fame for Great Americans at New York University on Newman Portal: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/booksbyauthor/130.