France, Circuit de l’Est, 1910, a uniface bronze medal by V.S. Canale, aviator in Bleriot monoplane left, six buildings in background, 100mm. Extremely fine and very rare (£100-150)

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Collection of Art Medals formed by Hans-P. Wipfler.

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Plate XV. The Circuit de l’Est was a six-stage air race held between 7 and 17 August 1910 from Paris to the cities of Troyes, Nancy, Charleville-Mezières, Douai, Amiens and back to Paris, a distance of 782km (485 miles), for a prize of 100,000 francs put up by the newspaper Le Matin. There were 35 competitors, many of them the best known aviators of the day, including Léon Morane (1885-1918), then holder of the world’s air speed record at 106kph in his Blériot monoplane, but the overall victor was Alfred Le Blanc (1869-1921), piloting another Blériot. Apart from the actual race, one day of the competition was devoted to side activities, with prizes awarded for, among others, the shortest take-off distance, the highest elevation achieved (the record altitude at the time was 1,800 metres) and the most number of passengers carried! Sold with copied illustrations of Le Blanc and his Blériot and details of Le Blanc’s winning time