REVIEW: COINS, HISTORICAL MEDALS & ANTIQUITIES, 13 & 14 JULY

Despite earlier experiments – some of them successful – it is the name Zeppelin that still commands the skies of the early days of manned flight by airship.

This silver medal by K. Goetz, featuring a bust of Ferdinand von Zeppelin in celebration of the flight of the Airship LZ-3 over Munich in 1909, is an extremely rare item that features in Noonans’ 13 & 14 July Coins, Historical Medals & Antiquities auction.

It was struck to commemorate the success of a demonstration flight to Munich and back from Friedrichshafen on April 1, 1909.

LZ-3 had by then been sold to the military and renamed LZ-3 (Z-1), and Count Zeppelin undertook the journey with a crew of soldiers and several officers of the engineering corps.

The arrival at Munich was to be accompanied by a review by German Royalty followed by a landing at the Oberwiesenfeld Parade Ground, but a gale blew the airship Northeast, away from Munich, and it later landed near Dingolfing, about 50 miles northeast of Munich.

Having completed repairs, the Z-1 set of for Munich once more the following morning and landed successfully at its original destination, from where it flew back to Friedrichshafen the same afternoon.

A legacy of its unscheduled stop near Dingolfing was the erection of an enormous monument with the inscription: “Zeppelin I landing of the first balloon in Bavaria 1 April, 1909.”

Zeppelin built on this success with a replacement LZ-4 (the original had been consumed by fire in August 1908). It embarked on a record-breaking 37.5-hour, 600-mile flight in late May 1909.

Then, in August 1909, the Count completed a two-day journey from Lake Constance to Berlin in LZ-6. His passengers included the Crown Prince of Germany and the King of Wurtemberg.

This triumph helped Zeppelin secure government funding for further development, financial support that would endure, thanks to propaganda, even after continuing disasters plagued the airships and they failed to demonstrate effective military service.

“This was the age of pioneering derring-do and personal sacrifice in the interests of science and innovation,” says Noonans’ Coin Department Head Tim Wilkes.

“Triumph and disaster both played their part as inventors experimented with methods of conquering the air, while capturing the public’s imagination. The sense of awe as, for the first time, they saw these huge airships ride the currents overhead, must have been overwhelming. The Munich trip would have provided the perfect opportunity for striking this rare and excellent commemorative medal.”

Featuring the airship over a cityscape to the reverse, it sold over top estimate at £320.

Caption: Silver commemorative medal by K. Goetz, featuring a bust of Ferdinand von Zeppelin in celebration of the flight of the Airship LZ 3 over Munich in 1909. It sold over top estimate at £320 in Noonans’ 13 & 14 July Coins, Historical Medals & Antiquities auction