Medals Related to Aviation, France, Alberto Santos-Dumont, Winner of the Deutsch de la Meurthe Prize, 1901, a bronze medal by C. Pillet, bust right, dirigible below, reverse female figure waving to Santos-Dumont’s dirigible as it passes the Eiffel Tower, 50mm (PBE 712; Coll. R. Marx 470; BDM IV, 537). Extremely fine and very rare; in red fitted case (£90-120)

Alberto Santos-Dumont (1873-1932), Brazilian inventor and aviator. From the age of 18 he lived and studied in Paris. In 1901, using a lightweight gasoline engine for power, he flew his hydrogen-filled airship around the Eiffel Tower -- the first such flight ever achieved. He made the first official heavier-than-air powered flight in Europe in his canvas-and-bamboo biplane in 1906.

No example in the Santos-Dumont group sold at Glendining’s, 12 x 1994. For a specimen of the better-known medal by Kinsburger commemorating this event, see BDW 30, 724