2017-10-14 Sat

There is no appetite for excitement among people with regard to President Trump’s official inaugural medal that is being marketed through donaldjtrump.com. The bronze medal is being struck by Medalcraft Mint, the Green Bay, Wisconsin, firm that was expected to produce an official inaugural medal in the weeks after the November 2016 presidential election.

There was a delay for several months in the production of any medal as Trump camp was working out on whether a rendering of the White House could be used in the design for the medal’s reverse.

The medal being marketed at https://shop.donaldjtrump.com/products/presidential-medal is simply identified as a “Presidential Medal,” without being designated the official inaugural medal.

The bronze Trump medal’s obverse features a nearly front-facing portrait of the 45th president, with DONALD J. TRUMP inscribed along the top border. The reverse design features an enlarged portion of a breeze-blown American flag with design enameled in red, white, and blue. Inscribed around the border is ? MAKE AMERICA ? GREAT AGAIN.

The medal measures 2.75 inches in diameter and is 0.22 inch thick. The medal’s edge is stamped incuse MEDALCRAFT MINT — GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN.

Medalcraft gave the Trump camp five proposed obverse portraits, and none of them were chosen. Two of those portraits were used in the production of medals in limited numbers for the Ohio Republican Committee and Republican National Committee. These portraits were paired with a presidential seal.

Before the release of the enameled medal, the ORC and RNC medals were being considered by some as official inaugural medals. People from the numismatic community believed that because of the delay in issuing a medal, there would be no official Trump inaugural medal.

For many decades, a common practice was prevalent, where a panel from an incoming president’s inaugural committee to plan and contract for production of an official medal to commemorate the historical event.

The official inaugural medals are often struck in bronze and silver versions for individual sale; often gold examples in a smaller diameter are also created.