Coins and Historical Medals

AUSTRIA, Medal of Civil Merit, a gold award by J. Tautenhayn, bust of Franz Joseph I right, rev. viribvs vnitis in wreath, edge named (Edward Horace Man, 13th Sept. 1888), 40mm, 83.56g (Holzmair 115). Brilliant mint state; in maroon fitted case of issue £3,000-£4,000

Edward Horace Man, CIE (1846-1929), b Singapore, was a British administrator and anthropologist who studied the Andaman and Nicobar tribes in the 19th century. His collections of artefacts and photographs are held in the Pitt Rivers Museum. His father, Capt. Henry Man, of the Madras Staff Corps, had helped establish the penal settlement at Port Blair and was later briefly resident councillor at Singapore. Little is known of Edward's early life but he joined his father in October 1869, becoming an assistant superintendent and later treasurer. Between 1880 and 1882 he visited England on leave and passed on some of his collections to General Augustus Pitt Rivers. Man retired in 1900 to England, living firstly at Surbiton and later Preston Park in Brighton. His collections are distributed across museums in Cambridge, Oxford, London, Leiden, Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden, Florence, Halifax, Edinburgh and Calcutta