SB.1.189
Medals [Ornaments]
Lot of three medals. Kenya. Two aluminum medals have a dotted cross motif on one side. The third medal (in silver?) Is fashioned from a piece of Austrian thaler in the vintage of 1780. It features the effigy of Archduchess Marie-Thérèse on one side then the imperial eagle of the Habsburgs on the reverse. The thaler enjoys exceptional circulation in the Ottoman Empire and on the African continent in the 19th and 20th centuries. It serves the colonial ambitions of England and the other European powers. In 1867, London ordered, for example, thalers to finance his campaign in Ethiopia led by Lord Tapier against the negus Theodoros. Five million of these coins are supplied to them by the Austrians. Later, the firm Johnson Matthey, which was unable to obtain sufficient thalers by the usual route, decided, in 1936, to manufacture them itself. This is how nearly 20 million of these coins were issued in London between 1936 and 1961..
Category: Pendant