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HolmeWork Assignment – September 2015: A Sherlock Holmes Silver Medal from the 1890’s?

HolmeWork Assignment – September 2015: A Sherlock Holmes Silver Medal from the 1890’s?

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“She had flung into the lake a bag containing some curious contents.”

– The Adventure of The Musgrave Ritual (MUSG)

sherlock_speech

This month’s HolmeWork assignment comes via a letter published in the July 7, 2002 issue of The E-Sylum:

Christopher Eimer writes: “The ongoing correspondence in The E-Sylum relating to Sherlock Holmes, and in particular Alan Luedeking’s request for numismatic references in today’s issue, reminds me of a medal that I purchased many years ago, which is said to illustrate a scene from a SH mystery.

The medal is silver, uniface, and measures 95 mm. (3.75 inches) in diameter, and can be dated to c.1890-1900. It shows a landscape in which a policeman, accompanied by two other men (detectives?) run towards a lake, in the foreground, in which can be seen two men.

The manner of dress and the atmosphere conjured by the scene is certainly redolent of a Sherlock Holmes mystery, and I have never had reason to doubt the attribution. I had hoped that after all these years, I would by chance come across a print or book illustration relating to this medallic image, but that has not been the case.

However, the current correspondence in The E-Sylum raises the chance that this image may well come to be identified.

I will email an image of the medal to any subscriber who is interested in seeing it.”

Wayne Homren, editor of The E-Sylum, included an email address for Mr. Eimer.  I reached out to Mr. Eimer, with faint hopes after 14 years had gone by, and received this response back:

I recall the medal but alas no longer have an image of it, nor do I remember to whom it was sold.

It is the only such specimen that I have come across and the connection with SH was an educated hunch – same period, scene of a policeman and a figure and a dog by a lake, as I distantly recall, cast or chased on a thin circular piece of silver, c. 80 mm. and around 1900 in date.

Anyone have any suggestions or clues as to this medal?

 

 

A $25,000 mechanical Loch Ness monster sends actors tumbling in the water in this scene for United Artists' thriller "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" which was being filmed in Scotland, Oct. 1969. Dr. Watson (Colin Blakely) leaps out of boat at right, while Gabrielle (Genevieve Page) and Sherlock Holmes (Robert Stephens) are struggling to keep their balance. The mechanical monster has disappeared into the 754-foot-deep loch and a San Francisco Insurance company says it is prepared to pay off. A fireman's fund spokesman says the monster itself isn't covered by insurance, but production delay costs because of the disappearance are insured. (AP Photo)
A $25,000 mechanical Loch Ness monster sends actors tumbling in the water in this scene for United Artists’ thriller “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes” which was being filmed in Scotland, Oct. 1969. Dr. Watson (Colin Blakely) leaps out of boat at right, while Gabrielle (Genevieve Page) and Sherlock Holmes (Robert Stephens) are struggling to keep their balance. Photo by Associated Press, 1969.

UPDATE September 3, 2018: See our updated post Update on HolmeWork Assignment: A Sherlock Holmes Silver Medal from the 1890’s?

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