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Auction: 26776 - America 250th Anniversary Sale Ft. Coins, Medals, Banknotes, Objets de Vertu & Ephemera
Lot: 79

(x) Commanders-in-Chief, BENJAMIN HARRISON, 23rd President of the United States (March 4, 1889 - March 4, 1893), Inauguration, Official AE Medal, 1889, unsigned, BENJAMIN HARRISON, draped bust left, rev. INAUGURATION 4 MARCH 1889, eagle right, c.25mm, pleasing extremely fine; Inauguration Chief Marshall, AE Medal, 1889, unsigned, named to General James A. Beaver, draped bust three-quarters left, rev. GENERAL | JAMES A. BEAVER | CHIEF MARSHALL, with suspension and riband, c.38mm, some contact marks, with a light pleasing red tone, extremely fine; with, his signature "Benjamin Harrison" on Fletcher & Sharpe's Bank cheque, dated 2 November 1885, sum of $2,500, mounted in frame, 267mm x 395mm

Not inspected outside of the frame. Sold as is.

Provenance

Presented to His Royal Highness Prince Bandar bin Sultan Al Saud, Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the United States (1983-2005), by James Addison Baker III, 67th Secretary of the Treasury and 10th White House Chief of Staff to President Ronald Reagan.

James Addison Baker III also served as 16th White House Chief of Staff and 61st Secretary of State to President George H. W. Bush.


Grandson of the ninth president, Harrison built his own name at the Indianapolis bar and on the battlefield, rising to Brigadier General in Sherman's march through Georgia before turning to Indiana politics and a seat in the U.S. Senate.



He arrived in the White House in an unconventional manner: having lost the popular vote to incumbent Grover Cleveland, he nevertheless succeeded in carrying sufficient Electoral Colleges to gain the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, with the exception of Florida 2000, this feat would not be replicated again until the 45th Presidential Race in November 2016.



Surprisingly, his single term proved legislatively fertile. The Fifty-First Congress, dubbed the "Billion Dollar Congress" for the scale of its appropriations, produced the Sherman Antitrust Act - the first federal challenge to monopoly power; as well as, the McKinley Tariff (1890) - which pushed import duties to historic heights (almost 50% universal duty); and the Sherman Silver Purchase Act - influential in the continued production of the ubiquitous Morgan Dollar.



Six new states entered the Union within his first two years: North and South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, and Wyoming; a territorial land grab unmatched by any administration before or since.



Abroad, his Secretary of State, James G Blaine convened the first Pan-American Conference (1889/90), and pressed the modernization of a steel-hulled Navy, while in his final days in office he submitted a treaty annexing Hawaii that his successor would withdraw before the ink had cooled.



Contemporaries found him an odd study in contrasts: eloquent and precise at the podium, glacial and unapproachable off it: "the human iceberg," in one wry sobriquet. It was under his roof that the White House first flickered with electric light, a novelty he and his wife reportedly regarded with such suspicion that they left the switches to the household staff.



Widowed weeks before facing Cleveland again in 1892, he lost the rematch decisively, retired to Indianapolis law practice, and closed his public life by representing Venezuela in its boundary arbitration against Britain. He died in 1901, remembered less as an architect of his age than as its capable, curiously distant administrator.

Subject to 5% tax on Hammer Price in addition to 20% VAT on Buyer’s Premium.

Estimate
$400 to $500

Starting price
$280