U.S.A., Sir Charles Carroll of Carrollton, 1826, a silver medal by C. Gobrecht, draped bust left, rev. the surviving signer of the declaration of independence after the 50th anniversary within wreath, upon entering his 90th year above, date below, 50mm, 50.10g (Julian PE-6; BDM VII, 372; cf. Martin V, 1096). Bright from past polishing, some surface marks and more noticeable edge knocks, otherwise about extremely fine, extremely rare; in original maroon gilt-blocked case [this somewhat scuffed] £1,500-£2,000

As John Kraljevich remarked in his cataloguing of the Syd Martin specimen, the Carroll medals were distributed to family and friends, not numismatists, so nearly all were handled and polished over the years. David Tripp's study of this medal yielded a population of 17 silver medals and three in gold; six copper examples are known. It seems possible from the documentary evidence that the known silver and gold medals account for the entire original mintage, as the dies were extracted from the Mint and held by the family rather than left on deposit for decades of restriking. Forrer quotes from an article in The Numismatist, December 1911, quoting a biographical sketch of the artist, Christian Gobrecht, in which Carroll’s grandson wrote “The impressions of the dies you [Gobrecht] sent me were very much admired by every one at a dinner given on the birthday of my grandfather, and pronounced excellent.”

Sir Charles Carroll (1737-1832), the last surviving signatory of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, was known contemporaneously as the ‘First Citizen’ of the American colonies, a consequence of signing articles in the Maryland Gazette with that pen name. The product of a Jesuit education in France, he inherited vast estates upon his return to Annapolis in 1765 from reading law in London. Not initially interested in politics, as Catholics had been barred from holding office in the state since 1704, Carroll began to become a powerful voice for independence in the early 1770s and was a leading opponent of British rule. A delegate at the Annapolis Convention, which functioned as Maryland’s revolutionary government prior to the Declaration of Independence, he was elected to the Continental Congress on 4 July 1776 and, after the deaths of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams on the same day, 4 July 1826, became the last living signatory of the Declaration. Reputed to be the wealthiest man in America at the time, Carroll presided over a 10,000-acre estate. A member of the Maryland Senate from 1781 to 1800, he was elected as one of the first senators from Maryland in 1789, but resigned in 1792 after the state passed a law barring individuals from serving in both state and federal offices simultaneously. Though he retired from public life in 1801, he helped to create the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in 1827 and he laid the foundation stone of the railroad on 4 July 1828