I feel the need to point out that any work of original authorship can be registered with the copyright office and they give you that letter / certificate. All you have to do is pay the $35 fee. Copyright registration does not have any bearing on the accuracy or scholarly merit of the work. It really just makes it easier for you to sue someone for stealing your work.

Interesting post though and nice pictures!

Interesting - I haven't thought about the origins of government special medals or where they were produced. With government being so large these days, I wonder who is producing the medals (private company or government) for the individual agencies. I suspect that they are handled differently than the challenge coins. 

You just have to love the American Bison design. These are currently all the Department of Interior honor medal types. The catalog designation are my doing. C=Class. The two on the right are in gold.

2 hours ago, DrDarryl said:

You just have to love the American Bison design. These are currently all the Department of Interior honor medal types. The catalog designation are my doing. C=Class. The two on the right are in gold.

Nice - I've always liked their insignia. One of the better ones in government. 

On 4/19/2020 at 9:51 AM, Revenant said:

I feel the need to point out that any work of original authorship can be registered with the copyright office and they give you that letter / certificate. All you have to do is pay the $35 fee. Copyright registration does not have any bearing on the accuracy or scholarly merit of the work. It really just makes it easier for you to sue someone for stealing your work.

Interesting post though and nice pictures!

Yes, you can't trust a riffraff waving a single copyright paper. The best picture below is the letter from the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library (the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library also has a copy of the blue book). Thank you very much, I have a published book in two Presidential Libraries. My next goal is to increase it by one (targeting to add the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library) with my next book. The second best picture is an email snippet from John Dean (numismatic author of the book National Commemorative Medals of the U.S. Mint). All other images are related to Special Government Medals (with a razor sharp focus on The White House (yes, its a U.S. Government agency) medals. This will be my 7th year (began in 2013)  researching these medals (started  with the Eisenhower appreciation medals, added the Kennedy appreciation medals, then expanded out to the other U.S. Government agencies. 

NGC graded/encapsulated my POTUS sGm research collection. More information about the POTUS sGm series can be found at https://potus-sgm.com/

Dont you buy these medals.at estate sales? You did nor redack one of your buys. They go for a low price. The goverment espically the Tresurary department makes.these on order of the president or congress. These are not medals for the public. There for the individual they were made for. I so not see any numasitic value in these. 

1 hour ago, MIKE BYRNE said:

Dont you buy these medals.at estate sales? You did nor redack one of your buys. They go for a low price. The goverment espically the Tresurary department makes.these on order of the president or congress. These are not medals for the public. There for the individual they were made for. I so not see any numasitic value in these. 

They'd definitely be more exonumia rather than numismatic items but still very collectable and interesting history. You see stuff like this come up on things like Pawn Stars a lot and I'm sure there are plenty of small museums and the like that might enjoy getting their hands on them. I imagine a lot of this would initially come on the market at estate sales because I think most would keep these until death and then the children / family would sell it, but you do hear some sad stories like the Nobel prize winner that sold his medal to cover medical expenses - which is a crying shame.