Re: ID a little medal
mile-ender said:
How do you figure the age of medals? I've gotten a number of them (not necessarily St. Benedict) and I've always wondered on how to date 'em.
Although patina is usually an indicator of age, it may not be reliable, depending upon the type of metal and the matrix in which it was found.
Medals sometimes bear dates, but those are generally commemorative rather than the actual year of striking. For example, even if it was made last week, the Medal of Immaculate Conception, or Miraculous Medal, will have the date 1830, the year when the Virgin Mary is said to have given the design of the medal to Saint Catherine Labouré.
Style drift in designs and lettering can be of some help, too, but some designs have remained unchanged for centuries.
In the case of Alex's medal, the stemmed suspension loop at the top is characteristic of older medals— say, early 1800's back to the 1600's. On later ones, the loop sits close to the edge, or the medal is simply holed near the edge for suspension.
Finally, there's the type of metal itself. If a medal is made of aluminum, it's likely post-1880's, although there are rare exceptions. (Prior to that time, aluminum was hard to refine and considered a precious metal.) Plating and bimetallic construction point to a later date, too.
Check out a few websites showing religious medals recovered from Spanish shipwrecks and Southwest mission trails, and you can easily see the difference between these and modern medals.
