(1763) Bronze Medal Betts-444, Peace of Paris

Coin Details

Auction Record

$1,800 MS64BN 08-24-2023 Stack's Bowers

Description

Betts-444 in bronze commemorates the Peace of Paris, the 1763 treaty that ended the Seven Years' War and established British supremacy in North America. The Treaty of Paris was one of the most consequential diplomatic agreements in world history, transferring France's North American empire to Britain and Spain. France retained only the tiny fishing islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, while Spain received Louisiana as compensation for ceding Florida to Britain. The bronze medal celebrating this peace documents the moment of maximum British colonial expansion, when the empire controlled all of eastern North America from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico. The irony, invisible in 1763, was that the removal of the French threat would make the American colonies less dependent on British protection and more resistant to British taxation, setting the stage for the revolution that would begin within a dozen years.

Rarity Notes

Bronze Peace of Paris medal. Documents the treaty that reshaped colonial America. Moderately scarce.

Cross References

Betts-444; PCGS #921194