Indian Peace Medal - 1825 John Quincy Adams, 1st Reverse, J-IP-12 AE 62.5mm NGC MS64BN

Here’s an attractive example of a restrike of the John Quincy Adams Indian Peace Medal from 1825. Purchasing a bronze restrike of such a historic medal will save you multiple thousands of dollars over the price of an original silver example. NGC has graded 1 as MS64BN with one finer. Only 4 of this issue have been graded by NGC.

Painting of John Quincy Adams by Charles Osgood from 1828. Image: Wikimedia Commons.

John Quincy Adams sits for Moritz Fürst

President John Quincy Adams wrote in his diary on May 30, 1825, "Mr. [Moritz] Fürst the Medalist came this morning and I sat to him about half an hour to take a profile of my face, with a pencil on paper from which he is to engrave it on the die for the medals to be distributed to the Indians." But Fürst was also going to create a private medal of Adams.

The President continued, "In about ten days the dies will be so far advanced that he will ask two or three sittings more, and he is engraving a separate medal for himself, the head of which he intends to engrave in the antique costume. In the medals for the Indians the bust is in the modern dress."  June 6 saw Adams sit again for the artist. The next day the drawing was completed and Fürst left for New York.

The die-sinker Fürst sent impressions of the dies with a letter to Adams, which read, "Your Excellency please to excuse me, that I take the liberty to forward you some Impretions from the Dies which I had the Honor to Engrave with your Likeness for the Indian Office."

"I am about Engraving your Likeness for the Medal which I intend to publish on my own Account, as you was so kinde to tell me, that you would send me the impretion of your Private Seal for the reverse, for which, I shall be obliged to your Excellency."

Meanwhile, Fürst traveled to Philadelphia to meet with Moore to discuss the inscriptions on the medals. The engraver gave the three dies to the Chief Coiner at the Mint, Adam Eckfeldt.