Ancient, British and World Coins, Historical and Art Medals

George IV, bronze portrait medal, 1823, armoured draped and laureate bust to right, georgius iv. rex above, signed I.S on truncation, reverse Victory seated on globe bearing the Hanoverian horse, among military trophies and other objects, her right arm holding a laurel wreath and raised triumphantly, regi optimo potentissimo above, struck on an unusually thick flan (BHM 1204). Extremely fine and extremely rare, struck from slightly rusty dies

One of the rarest of all the medals of George IV. Lawrence Brown records it on the basis of the only specimen known to to him, that in the Ashmolean Museum, formely in the collection of Col. M.H.Grant, perhaps the foremost collector of nineteenth century medals in the pre-war period. The Latin inscription (“to the best and most mighty of kings”) suggests the medal may be associated with a royal visit or some other state occasion (possibly the cancelled visit to Southampton — see BHM 1205), but because of the prominence of the Hanoverian horse it could have been intended to mark an anniversary of some kind