2017-05-02 Tue

Monnaies de Collection Monaco will offer a large Napoleon III gold medal at an auction on 20th May. The medal was issued in 1856 by a French company named Societe des lingots d’or (gold ingot company) that sponsored French settlers to the California Gold Rush in the 1850s. The company was created on 3rd August 1850 to send 5,000 unemployed Frenchmen to the gold mines of California.

These chosen men were either ex-soldiers or had revolutionary opinions. This could have been a political move to send them out of the country. The candidates were selected based on a lucky draw and were given a sum of money along with a ticket to the United States. The jackpot was a gold ingot worth 400,000 francs which was placed on exhibit in Paris at Montmartre.

The obverse of the huge 265.7 gms medal, graded Specimen 66, with an estimated value of €30,000, features a portrait of Napoleon III, and the reverse has inscriptions of the names of society officials.