1884 James G. Blaine Campaign Medal DeWitt JGB 1884-21 Silvered Copper

An 1884 campaign medalet for James G. Blaine, struck in copper and silvered, 25 mm, cataloged as DeWitt JGB 1884-21. The same number is also recorded in gilt. Silvering was the cheap way to dress a base metal striking up into something that read as silver at arm's length. It is also the finish most often lost: the plating wears through at the rims and the high points first, and a piece that has kept it intact across both sides is the exception rather than the rule. Blaine's defeat is usually laid at the door of two things. Reform Republicans who would not have him bolted as Mugwumps, and days before the vote a supporter at a Blaine reception tarred the Democrats as the party of rum, Romanism and rebellion. The line cost him Irish Catholic votes in New York, and New York decided the election by 1,047 ballots. 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.