Coins, Historical Medals & Paper Money

The Order of Blue and Orange, 1727, a gold medal or badge, unsigned, octagonal altar, sides decorated with an orange, radiate Garter badge decorated with the Brunswick Horse above, rev. circular drum decorated with a rams head, on which stand five upright arrows held together and passing through an Electoral crown, circular band around, 50 x 30mm, 15.51g (Woolf 42:1b; MI II, 487/25). Extremely fine and extremely rare, perhaps the only example extant in gold; with integral suspension loop, decorated with a rose £1,000-1,500

Provenance: Baldwin Auction 63, 30 September 2009, lot 1233.

The Loyal Order of the Friendly Society of Blue and Orange was formed around 1727 by officers of the King’s Own Regiment of Foot, in order to commemorate the principles of the Revolution in 1688 and the succession of the House of Hanover, with allusions to the houses of Orange and Brunswick. The legend on the reverse side refers to James Stuart, the Old Jacobite Pretender, who by this time had made at least two attempts to recover the Crown of England