1884 James G. Blaine Campaign Medal DeWitt JGB 1884-24 Gilt

An 1884 campaign medalet for James G. Blaine, struck in gilt and cataloged as DeWitt JGB 1884-24. The gilt finish was an upcharge on the same dies that produced the base metal strikings, meant for supporters who wanted something better than the piece handed out at the rally. Gilding this thin rarely survives a century of handling, and the grade of a gilt campaign piece is in practice a question of how much of the original wash is left. Blaine had wanted the Republican nomination since 1876 and finally took it in 1884, on the fourth ballot at Chicago. The party that gave it to him promptly split, and the campaign that followed was one of the most personal in American history. He carried eighteen states to Cleveland's twenty and lost. 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.