Jewellery, Watches and Objects of Vertu

An early 20th century gold and diamond set presentation medallion on fob, the black grosgrain ribbon suspending a gold bar and a circular medallion below, centred with an old-cut diamond within star setting, the bar engraved:
‘PRESENTED TO’
the medallion engraved:
‘HONOURABLE Fred Sonnenschein Mayor West Point Nebraska May 1905’, and to the reverse:
‘BY HIS COLLEAGUES IN COUNCIL
and 150 of his Constituents in recognition of his meritorious and faithful services as Mayor’,
total diamond weight approximately 0.2 carat, diameter of medallion 39.5mm.


£500-£700

In the 1860s, the United States government forced many of the Native American tribes to cede their lands and settle elsewhere. It opened large areas of land to agricultural developed by Europeans and Americans. Under the Homestead Act, thousands of settlers migrated into Nebraska to claim free land granted by the federal government. The first wave of settlement gave the territory a sufficient population to apply for statehood and Nebraska became the 37th U.S. state on 1 March 1867. By the 1880s, Nebraska’s population had soared to more than 450,000 people.







The Norfolk Weekly News Journal of Nebraska, 23 March 1906, makes reference to Fred Sonnenschein being nominated again as Mayor for West Point, Nebraska.