Friday, February 1, 2013

Friday night mystery: Crown? Medal? VM logo?


OK, I'm going to need some crowdsourcing help with this old piece of ephemera.

It's about the size of an index card and the back is entirely blank.

Overall, it looks like an illustration of a medal. At the top is a gold crown with a star and the number 1105 within.

At the bottom, the letters V and M appear within a circle that's surrounded by crosses pattée.

Your thoughts?

3 comments:

  1. Hi, Chris, Well, I noticed that the medal also includes a C in a purple or pink color behind the M. I did some googling, and it turns out the medal design is associated with a beneficent fraternal organization called Royal Arcanum, established in 1877. According to this source < http://books.google.com/books?id=LUFYAAAAYAAJ&dq=royal+arcanum+what+does+1105+mean&source=gbs_navlinks_s>, 1105 has some mystical meaning. V.C.M. (or V.M.C), according to this source < http://www.stichtingargus.nl/vrijmetselarij/arcanum_r.html>, stands for virtue, mercy, and charity. There are several medals associated with the group for sale on eBay. Based on the design, I would suspect that this ephemera dates to the late nineteenth or early twentieth-century. It’s a lovely item! I wonder what the paper itself was used for.

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    1. WONDERFUL WORK, Nicole. Thank you very much. I don't think I've ever seen a mystery solved so quickly. And the C was right there staring me in the face, and I totally missed it. Looking forward to reading more about Royal Arcanum!

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  2. ...I think this one is very similar: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Royal-Arcanum-Fraternal-Insurance-Soc-Medal-Crown-Blue-Ribbon-4-5-x-2-/130842846005?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e76d76335

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