Posted 6 years ago
Militarist
(296 items)
Buffalo, NY Gold Police Medal
This one is beyond the scope of my normal geographical collecting area but I’m a gold lover so I bought it anyway. The medal and brooch is 10 k gold. The brooch is marked 10k but the medal as far as I can see is not; however there can be no doubt that the medal is at least 10k also based on the color and weight. Since the medal and brooch are connected by the ribbon I first weighed an equal length of ribbon and then subtracted that weight from the total weight of the entire unit i.e. medal, ribbon and brooch. Therefore the actual weight of the medal and brooch is 23.07 grams of 10 k gold or .3090 oz of pure gold content.
Now for the interesting part. The medal was awarded by the Merchants Mutual Casualty Company to Desk Lt. Milton W. Speidel of the Buffalo, N.Y. Police department in 1954 for saving the life of a man in an automobile accident. It is not often that a desk jockey has a chance to earn such a medal and Lt. Speidel did it while on his way home after completing his shift for that day.