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Analyzing a 20th Century Medallist Advertisement

 My goal for this week’s workshop was to find an American advertisement of the early 20th century (preferably between 1900-1940) concerning commemorative and/or war medals. However, I was unsuccessful in finding an advertisement with these specific traits. My speculation for this is that because the U.S. did not enter the Great War until 1917, the year before its end, there may be a lesser amount of distinctively American advertisements concerning these items. For this reason, finding advertisements for my item proved challenging. However, I did manage to find an advertisement of a company called “John Pinches Medallist LTD.” which was founded by two 19th century British citizens by the name of John Pinches and William Wyon. Though Pinches and Wyon established the Business in Britain, it would soon be bought by the American company “Franklin Mint” located in Pennsylvania[1]. To wrap up this backstory, the company is known for their production of Great War medals, one of them being the Croix de Guerre, a medal that I have expressed interest with due to its relevancy to the 369th Regiment of New York.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     [2]


To analyze this advertisement with the strategies of Barthes, I would like to first examine the advertisements labels, wording, and writing, which falls under the linguistic message. I am not too knowledgeable of the currency in which British citizens utilized during the time that this medal was made, but I believe the currency present on this image is that of British pounds. If someone were to look at this with no concept of British currency, it may be hard to decipher exactly what is being placed on the advertisement and the advertisement’s message. In terms of symbols on this advertisement, the Churchill medal, I would argue, takes up a considerable chunk of the upper right corner. In this case, I think that John Pinches Medallist LTD. wants to incite attention from consumers to the art of the medal as well as the prominent figure on the medal. The abundant amount of space given to the medal as well as its raised position on the piece is a signifying technique in which Barthes might analyze.

There is no apparent message in the advertisement, at least not of a linguistic nature, which places the work of John Pinches Medallist LTD. over other medallist of Britain or anywhere else in the world. However, I would say that perhaps the abundant amount of information on the ad pertaining to medal prices, available elements to craft a medal through the company, and presence of Prime Minister Winston Churchill is the “non-coded” technique in which Barthes relays in her article. Though the company does not outwardly say “you want us over every other medallist organization around”, it may be that the design and information on the this advertisement is indeed the company’s way of coding and that viewers should choose them over anyone else.


[1]Alyson Wilson, Pressing Time in the history of the Commemorative Medal, (Catford: South London Press, 2017), https://claphamsociety.com/Articles/article19-pressing-time-history-commemorative-medal.html.

[2] This is the advertisement from John Pinches Medallist LTD. including a medal of Prime Minister Winston Churchill: https://claphamsociety.com/Articles/article19-pressing-time-history-commemorative-medal.html.

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