Joseph Wharton was a major 19th century industrialist credited with producing the first metallic zinc and the first metallic nickel in America. He was also was one of the founders of both the International Nickel Co. and Bethlehem Steel. He also founded the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

There are several medals featuring Wharton, including a common So-Called Dollar (HK-323) and a slightly less common award medal, bothpictured in a Heritage sale a couple of years ago.

Attached are pictures of a different medal related to Joseph Wharton, showing his parents William Wharton and Deborah Fisher Wharton. It is 53.4 mm, 54.9 g, and unsigned. I have not been able to locate any information about this medal, and I wonder if any of the readership might have seen it before.

This medal bears some obvious similarities to a well-known-but-rare medal featuring Benjamin Franklin. That medal, produced by prolificmedallist Robert Lovett Jr., is pictured at Heritage, and also in the ANS collection.

The wording on the reverse is identical to this one, but from a totally different die. Compared to the Franklin medal, parts of the William Wharton medal show high quality. The letters are nicely squared off, and it clearly had nice reflective surfaces to start with. But parts have low quality. Many of the letters on the reverse of the William Wharton medal are recut or repunched, some of them drastically. The portraits show linear dotted marks throughout that I'm going to say (waving my hands) might be un-cleaned-up evidence of using some sort of reducing machine during the production of the dies. In short, the William and Deborah Wharton medal doesn't have the feel of "Lovett quality".

In trying to find any information about this medal, I came across one reference that might be relevant -- or that might confuse the issue further. On February 18, 1895, Horatio Robinson Storer read a paper before the Newport Historical Society describing the medals of Rhode Island. Item 120 in that paper is a medal described as "Joseph Wharton, summer resident at Jamestown, R.I. Bronze. 53mm. By R. Lovett." .

That medal is probably related to this one, but is it the same piece? It seems that this medal would best be described as portraying William and Deborah Wharton. Similarly, the Franklin medal would best be described as portraying Franklin. Was Storer describing one of those, or possibly a third piece that really does portray Joseph?

Any information about this William and Deborah Wharton medal would be welcomed.

Pete Smith writes:

To read the earlier E-Sylum articles, see:
QUERY: JOSEPH WHARTON MEDALS (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v13n01a25.html)
QUERY: JOSEPH WHARTON MEDAL INFORMATION SOUGHT (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v18n47a20.html)