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Auction: 323 - The Numismatic Collector's Series Sale
Lot: 946

Collection of Bronze Medals used as Samples by the Mortimer Spiller Company of Batavia, NY, late 1940's to the 1970's (with the bulk of the lot 1950's). Mostly Bronze and large format, generally 64-82mm (with most in the 70-82mm range), some plaquettes, made for various businesses and institutions. Includes shopping centers, trucking companies, Buffalo Society of Artists Annual Awards, Buffalo Envelope Co. (shaped like a envelope), Shearman Brothers Co. of Jamestown NY, Mover Star Inc. - Slips Petticoats and Gowns, Graflex Award (depicts old shutter camera), University of Utah, California State Fair Award, U.S. Dept of Agriculture Superior Service Award, Time Current Affairs Contest Award, and others. A few marked by other companies - Metal Arts of Rochester, International Bronze Tab Co, - NY. Spiller normally did not sign its work, but one is signed (The Time Current Affairs). In the late 1940's, Mortimer Spiller, a 25-year old WWII veteran and recent City College graduate stood on a blustery corner of Times Square doing market research for an ad firm. Spying newspapers blowing away in the wind, he saw that the more prudent newsstands used bricks to safeguard their papers. Spiller recalled the handsome metal newsstand weights with the names of the papers and periodicals before the war. Such weights had disappeared when metal was requisitioned for Uncle Sam in the fight against the Axis. The proverbial lightbulb went off; young Spiller began a company to produce newsstand paper weights again. Starting out in New York City, he found costs too high, packed up and relocated his family and operations upstate to Batavia, NY. There, the Mortimer Spiller Co., Inc. produced newsstand weights, and promotional artifacts and medals for a broad range of companies -- such as Sylvania, GE and Nestles -- until the 1980's. About Uncirculated-Uncirculated. From the Mortimer Spiller family. (33)

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$200