Tokens and medals are fertile ground for numismatic research. The fundamental questions of our discipline ask why an object was created, who created it and how manufactured, and finally how theobject was used or distributed. For a series of coins these questions might have all the same answers. For token and medals, each tends to stand on its own and each of the questions must beindividually investigated.

This week a Newman Portal searched for "New York Horticultural Society," and, while the search results are helpful, there is clearly more research to do on this particular object. The user wasalmost certainly searching for award medals of this New York group, and a Newman Portal search identifies Presidential Coin and Antique's Gold Medal Sale (December 1991, #51 in that series), lot 327.From there the cataloger Joe Levine does the heavy lifting:

Levine addresses nearly every point of the numismatic inquiry. The question of why so few were produced remains, and for that one would likely have to comb through the archives of the New YorkHorticultural Society. Also missing is an image of the object. Perhaps an E-Sylum reader could supply?

Image: Extract from the Isaac Wood catalog, lot 118, showing the purchaser as "Low" and the sale price of 65 cents.

Link to Presidential Coin and Antique sale #51:
https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/auctionlots?AucCoId=511514&AuctionId=511929&page=40

Link to S. H. & H. Chapman's sale of the Isaac Wood medal collection:
https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/auctionlots?AucCoId=21&AuctionId=510864