Mutt and Jeff visits to the Swap Shop have not had much luck finding anything of numismatic interest lately, except for some wooden nickels.

Mutt acquired an interesting medal at the last club meeting, after a very circuitous set of events. The [bronze] medal was lot #45 in the auction, and at first there were several bidders, eventually one of the members won. Later, after the meeting, winning bidder offered to trade the medal for a book Mutt was offering from his library and a deal was struck.

After two day of intermittent research on the internet the following facts came to light.

Americans are not very good with foreign languages. Numismatists can follow dates, denominations and quite often mintmarks. In this case the cornucopia of the Paris Mint was noted on the rim. The word CUIVRE that Mutt did not know turned out to be French for copper, where the data with the medal had indicated it was a bronze medal. The 1976 would be the date of issue.

A search on the internet produced a French version of a long biography of the artist RAYMOND COUVEGNES. An internet translation of the French text produced, according to Jeff, a dis-jointed background story of the designer. Although Jeff always helps with the editing, this time, just like the medal, he through his hands up. Another web site offering free translations was attempted. This time the proper names in French were not literally translated, but left in the original French, for better meaning. Both Mutt and Jeff added their personal editing, partly to make the story more concise. Click on the designers name to read the biography.