Coins, Paper Money, Tokens and Historical Medals

Samuel Pepys, 1688, a uniface plaster model for the obv. of a medal by J. Cavalier, laureate and draped bust right, sam pepys car et iac angl regie a secretis a admiralla around, back signed j. cavalier. fecit ao d 1688, 80mm. Very fine and extremely rare; set in a glazed display case [glass at back cracked] £200-300

Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), the naval administrator famous for his Diary was, strangely enough, not depicted on any known medal struck in his lifetime. At the time this work was created Pepys was coming to the end of his spell as Secretary for the Admiralty (1685-9) as well as his time as MP for Harwich. Jean Cavalier, the medallist and worker in ivory better known as Jean Chevalier, is known to have been living in London in 1690; he subsequently removed to Berlin and then Paris. Catalogues seem to assume that his work was prolific but within the world of commercial numismatics that is not the case