 Fortress Louisbourg Taken, 1758. B.410, MI.404, Eimer 10, Tancred pp. 43-5. Obverse signed T.PINGO.F. Gold. 43.8 mm. 826.9 gns. Uninscribed edge. Extremely rare: medals in gold were presented to officers commanding during the investment and capture of the fort and town. The cataloguer can recall as a recent record in gold only Captain Matthew Buckle's sold by Morton & Eden in December, 2003. Boscawen's is in the American Numismatic Society, ex Norweb. There was one in the Hunter sale (said to be this piece). The one presented to Captain Collings was engraved with his name around the edge. Choice Uncirculated, prooflike. Nice, medium yellow gold color with brightly reflective fields. Edge rough as made. Brand called this both unique and ''Proof'' and valued it at $240. B.G. Johnson appraised it in 1932 at $200.
The obverse shows a British infantryman of a line regiment on the left and a naval seaman on the right, both of whom point to the site of Louisbourg on the section of a globe marked CANADA. Overtaken by the globe is a hag-like France who points with one hand to a fleur-de-lys that has tumbled from its perch and with another to the cause of her downfall, British boat parties bobbing in the sea. Above the globe hovers Fame, who flies towards a Union Jack with a victor's crown in her hand. The reverse shows a somewhat fanciful scene of the high point in the battle for Louisbourg, with the British fleet at anchor off the harbor, the French 74-gun Prudent afire from stem to stern, the 64-gun Bienfaisant under tow by British longboats at the left, the rest of the French fleet sunk or aground in the right middle ground, a French battery in the foreground hopelessly firing towards the fleet, and a bomb arching around the whole and hanging ominously above the town.
The capture of Fortress Louisbourg turned the key in the door of French Canada and the destruction of the French fleet in her harbor made the way up the St. Lawrence safe. By the end of the campaign both Quebec and Montreal had fallen and Canada was British.
Ex Virgil Brand Collection via New Netherlands Coin Company in 1953; said ex Hunter Collection (1920).
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