1884 James G. Blaine Campaign Medal DeWitt JGB 1884-16 Copper

An 1884 campaign medalet for James G. Blaine, struck in copper at 26 mm, cataloged as DeWitt JGB 1884-16. Copper strikings were the better grade of a given issue, run in smaller numbers than the white metal version off the same dies. They are collected the way contemporary large cents and Indian head cents are collected, on color and surface, and an original brown piece without spots or rubs is the goal. The 1884 canvass turned on character rather than policy, and both sides fought it with metal. Blaine committees put out medalets, shells, badges and lapel pieces in the largest volume yet seen in an American campaign, which is why 1884 runs so deep in the DeWitt catalog. He finished about a thousand New York votes short of the White House. Ex J. Doyle DeWitt. DeWitt built the reference collection of American political material, some seventy thousand pieces, while rising from claims investigator to president of the Travelers Insurance Company, and his 1959 catalog A Century of Campaign Buttons is the source of the numbering used here. Edmund B. Sullivan revised and enlarged it in 1981. Graded Mint State in hand. Offered raw, without certification.