J.C. Wienecke, 1923, Chamber of Commerce for the Utrecht area, silver, 60 mm, NEPK2628
This summer the NEPK collection received a donation of almost 80 medals from the archives of the Netherlands Chamber of Commerce. While the number of regional Chambers of Commerce was almost 100 around 1900, due to centralisation there is now only one. This Chamber has donated its collection of medals, originating from the different regional chambers, to NEPK. With this transfer, the medals are registered and preserved in a museum collection. Through the NEPK website their description and images are now unlocked for the general public.
About 20 of the newly acquired medals are issued by one of the Dutch chambers, 25 are gifts received from foreign chambers, and some 20 other medals received by chambers. Of special interest are five large scale models, a bronze model for die cutting, an electrotype and four other metal tokens of recognition of the Dutch Chamber.
By nature, the medals of the chambers are Medals of Honour of Medals of Merit. The medal obverse often shows a caduceus, Mercury’s hat, cogwheels, a sledge hammer, factories and a ship as symbols of trade and industry.
The medal reverses are generally simple: a wreath and space for inscription. Many of the donated medals have indeed been personalised by an inscription, which makes them historically even more interesting.
On the NEPK site you can find all above medals by using the search term:
“(deel KVK-schenking)”. Please note: the apostrophes are part of the search term.
For the medal shown, click: https://www.nepk.nl/en/collectie/?id=2628
For earlier news items, click: https://www.nepk.nl/en/news/
