No. 2
German Camp Douglas Medal
Douglas, Peel and Knockaloe had been chosen as sites for the detention camps on the Isle of Man. Here many an alien who for years had followed some profession or trade in Great Britain was interned in 1914 for the duration of the war. The English and German Relief Committees with the active cooperation of the American Young Men’s Christian Association succeeded in performing what seemed to the New York Times correspondent at that time to have been an unheard-of feat under the existing conditions: the establishment of an art school for prisoners of war at Camp Douglas. Beside wooden boxes done in chip carving and in wood intaglio, the commemorative medals for German war prisoners were certainly the most artistic objects produced there. Through a strange irony of fate, they were strictly “made in England.” “Some day they will be of historic value,” said the New York Times correspondent in concluding his article. The art school was established in 1915. From the inscription on the medals “1914-1915” it is clear that they must have been designed and executed in the latter year, three years before the war came to an end.
No other war prisoners medals dating back to the First World War have come to the attention of the present author. Yet, there may be some that eluded him. He therefore would appreciate any additional information that readers should be kind enough to send him (address: 415 West 115th Street, New York 25, N. Y.)
III
American War-Prison Tokens and Medals
1. “Historical Tokens”
The study of European money and medals issued for prisoners of war in 1914-1918, aroused—little wonder—the curiosity as to whether similar items came into existence in this country too. No war prisoners money or medal originating in the last war is known to the author. In his collection, however, five related items are found, four small tokens and one large medal, which are deserving the historian’s and medallist’s attention. All of them picture war prisons of ill fame. Four pertain to the Revolutionary War, the fifth to the Civil War. Thus it is pertinent to consider them all in this connection.
No. 3A
The Old Provoost, New York
Nos. 3 A, 3 B, 4 and 5 are copper tokens, each 31 millimeters in diameter. They are not “historical” items in that they have come down to us as immediate witnesses from the period of the Revolutionary War. They are rather medallic creations of an outspoken commercial character, but nevertheless “historical” tokens. Nos. 3 A and 3 B are identical with No. 1 of a series of fourteen “Historical Tokens” issued by August B. Sage, a well-known New York coin dealer, in 1859. No. 4 in the present numbering is identical with No. 2, and No. 5 with No. 5 of the same series. On the first page of his Catalogue of Coins, Medals and Tokens, No. 1, of February 1859, Mr. Sage announced that “this series will consist of about 25 tokens, each one giving a correct representation of some public building around which there is anything of an historical interest.” No more than fourteen tokens were actually issued of this series. All of them were advertised in Mr. Sage’s later catalogue of June 1859. They were executed in copper plain edge and in copper and brass with reeded edges. In 1859, the set was offered for sale for $4.00. Mules in copper, brass, and tin are known. Of No. 1 and No. 6 two dies were made: in both cases the original die showed some mistakes in picture or legend which were corrected in the second die. In Chapman’s catalogue of the Bushnell collection a specimen of No. 1 in silver is listed as No. 462. It was described as of “weak impression, but very rare.”
No. 3 A shows on its obverse a three-story building. On top a fourth-story attic is added with four dormer windows. Above the roof rises an octagon-shaped tower surrounded by a balustrade and surmounted by a cupola ending in a cross. On the front side of the building at the level of the main floor an empty space is visible. It was probably designated in the draft for a gate or entrance door which is, however, missing. The building is surrounded by a fence. In the lowest part of the obverse, a large asterisk is placed between two smaller ones. The top space contains the inscription: THE OLD PROVOOST, N. Y. The reverse has the following legend arranged in five lines A/ BRITISH/ BRISON/ DURING THE/ REVOLUTION. The third word reads Brison, and not Prison. This inscription is placed within the chain of shackles in a wreath-like arrangement. The endings converge but do not meet, in the lower part of the obverse. Between the open ends one reads: NO. 1, and underneath in smaller letters parallel to the rim: AUG. B. SAGE’S HISTORICAL TOKENS.