The Saint-Gaudens plaquette on the cover of the September issue of The Numismatist, illustrating Erik Goldstein's excellentarticle. and the summation in last week's E-Sylum, is indeed a rare piece.

It may have been so rare that when a specimen came up for auction in a Hans M.F. Schulman sale it attracted the attention of Neil MacNeil (1923-2008), author of the book The Presidents Medal (1977). Neil had been appointed as one of the directors of the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site in Cornish, New Hampshire a few years before.

Whether the museum at the site had one of these in their collection I do not know, but Neil bid and won the medal. He almost immediately donated it to the site. I know since I was the underbidder. The plaquette is illustrated in John Dryfout's 1982 book The Work of Augustus St-Gaudens.

For numismatists or book collectors Dryfout's book is a catalog raisonné of Saint-Gauden's medallic work. For even more on the subject of Saint-Gaudens involvement see Michael Moran's 2008 book Striking Change.

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
THE SAINT-GAUDENS CORNISH MASQUE PLAQUETTE (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v18n35a17.html)