Joe Boling writes:

I had a feeling that Tony Lopez's Drake Map Medal "must be" a recent reproduction, but I wasn't able to make that call for sure, since I don't know the diagnostics.

I believe that the modern version mentioned by Alan Weinberg were produced by the National Maritime Museum, which apparently owns the origingal that he remembers selling for $50,000. These medals were discussed in an earlier E-Sylum:
THE MERCATOR MEDAL OF DRAKE'S WORLD CIRCUMNAVIGATION(www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v13n20a23.html).

An example of that reproduction with its box is shown here:

To read the complete page, see:The Drake Silver Medal Map(www.24carat.co.uk/frame.php?url=1989michaelmercator1589sirfrancisdrakemapsilvermedalion.html)

I'd note that both the design and the weight of Tony's piece differ significantly from those of this reproduction. The design of his piece seems to match that of this one from the NMM collection (http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/37447.html),although even then the weights differ.

Rulau lists this as Rulau E8 with comments:

The copper medal shown by Alan is one of my favorite medals. The white metal version is Rulau E9 (75mm) or E10 (51mm). As Alan notes, the bronze version is unlisted by Rulau. Alan's seems to be the 75mm version.

These medals are unsigned and undated, but typically ascribed to the British medallist Sir Edward Thomason. Based on the features shown in the maps, Rulau dates the large one to circa 1815 and the small one to 1802: "The United States is shown as it was just after 1800 (Washington, D. C. founded) but before 1803 (Louisiana Purchase)."

I particularly like a chain of islands in the Pacific labeled as Owyhee (say it aloud a few times). That seems not to have been an error on the part of the medalist, but rather the preferred spelling in use at the time.

I spent several years looking for fairly nice matching sets of both sizes, then got them framed for hanging.

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:MORE ON MAP MEDALS(www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v16n26a20.html)