My wife and I are visiting our daughter in Tulsa, OK and we took a little side-trip to the Gilcrease Museum, where they have a phenomenal collection of Western Art and Amerindian historical items. In one of the display cases was a Washington Oval Peace Medal which prompted my remark, "I wonder if it's real."

In our obligatory trip to the museum gift shop, I browsed the books for anything of interest and found "Peace Medals: Negotiating Power in Early America", edited by Robert B. Pickering, Ph.D. and published in 2011 by the Gilcrease Museum. The book looks at Indian Peace Medals from an historical perspective rather than a numismatic one, but there is a great chapter by the late, great George Fuld on Washington Oval Peace Medals where he lists a census of known examples. Therein, the Gilcrease example is listed as one of the 1792 Small Size Oval Peace Medals.

Also, the museum has a bronze bust of an Indian Chief by Adolphe A. Weinman (designer of the "Mercury" Head Dime and the Walking Liberty Half Dollar) and a bronze bust of an Indian astride a horse by Cyrus Dallin (designer of the 1920 and 1921 Pilgrim Half Dollars).

Sometimes, I forget that the world of numismatics shares some of its brightest stars with other spheres in life, and it is always surprising to make the connection.

For more information on the Gilcrease Museum, see:http://gilcrease.utulsa.edu/