The Silich Collection of Historical and Art Medals (Part I)

ENGLAND, Tit-Bits Magazine, a silver Award of Merit medal by J.A. Restall, two standing females and a kneeling male representative of the arts, music and literature, rev. robed figure of Justice standing left, holding a scroll being inscribed by a winged infant, named (Awarded to Mr George Smith for Success in Competitions, October 1900), hallmarked Birmingham 1900, 57mm, 94.96g (cf. Noonans 264, 873). Extremely fine and attractively toned £100-£150

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Silich Collection of Historical and Art Medals.

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Baldwin Auction 70, 28 September 2011, lot 826; bt J. Lis, July 2012

Tit-Bits from all the interesting Books and Newspapers of the World, more commonly known as Tit-Bits, was a weekly magazine founded by George Newnes (1851-1910) in Manchester on 22 October 1881 as a direct response to the Elementary Education Act of 1870, which introduced education for children aged 5 to 12 and hence produced a new young generation able to read. From the outset the magazine was a mass-circulation commercial publication on cheap newsprint which, after relocating to London in the mid 1880s, soon reached sales of between 400,000 and 600,000, and by the turn of the twentieth century became the first periodical in Britain to sell over a million copies per issue. Publication ceased in June 1984.