Item: i98302

Authentic Medal of:

Switzerland  – Federal Swiss Thurgau Shooting Festival in Frauenfeld
1890 Silver Medal 45mm (38.59 grams)
Reference: Thurgau# R-1250b Richter-1250b, Martin-666
HEIL DIR HELVETIA 1803, Helvetia raising shield over woman holding arms, village, facade behind.
EID GENOSSISCHES SCHUTZENFEST IN FRAUENFELD JULI 1890, Plaque with woman holding chained lion rearing left, wreath with intersecting guns behind, two flowers below.

You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.

A Schützenfest is a traditional festival or fair featuring a target shooting competition in the cultures of both Germany and Switzerland.

At a Schützenfest, contestants compete based on their shooting abilities, for example by shooting at a wooden representation of an eagle. The winner of the competition becomes the Schützenkönig (“king of marksmen”) until the next year’s competition.

The commercially-organized Schützenfest of Hanover, Germany, is the largest marksmen’s funfair in the world with more than 5,000 marksmen, 250 rides and inns, 5 large beer tents, and the “Marksmen’s Parade”. The parade, with more than 10,000 participants from Germany and all over the world and more than 100 bands, is 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) long. It is the longest parade in the world. The landmark of the funfair is one of the highest transportable Ferris wheels in the world. It is 60 metres (200 ft) high and can transport 420 people in 42 cabins.

Medals and decorations

Shooting competitions are a way of life in the Germanic regions of Europe, especially in Switzerland. The initial Swiss Federal Shooting Festival (Eidgenössisches Schützenfest) was held in 1824. Federal contests along with cantonal level, city, and club competitions have continued through to the present day.

Various awards for marksmanship have been won by the competitors. Shooting medals and shooting cups are the most common forms of award. Books illustrating and listing these awards have been published in Switzerland.

Swiss shooting medals were struck in a variety of metals including gold, silver, bronze, white metal, and aluminum, with silver being the most common. Mintages are very low with the average mintage of the 45 millimetres (1.8 in) silver being 700-800 pieces. The scarcity of medals has increased over the years due to the awards being melted for bullion, being lost, and general attrition. The size of most medals range from 23 millimetres (0.91 in) to 62 millimetres (2.4 in) with 45 millimetres (1.8 in) being the most prevalent.

Also minted to commemorate the Shooting Festival were shooting thalers. Swiss shooting thalers began mintage in 1842, and continue being minted today. They can be distinguished from shooting medals by their uniform size and temporary legal tender status.

History

During the Middle Ages, many towns had to find ways to defend themselves from gangs of marauders. For this reason clubs and associations were founded, comparable to militias; these paramilitary associations were sanctioned for the first time in the Law for the Defensive Constitution of the Towns by King Henry I, and officially integrated into the towns’ defense plans. Accompanying the military exercises and physical examinations of the towns’ contingents, festivities were held combined with festive processions. Participants from other parishes and at times even the feudal heads of state were also invited to these Marksmen’s Courts (Schützenhöfe). However, the self-confident spirit of the townsfolk that marked these festivities was not always regarded positively by the authorities. For this reason, different traditions developed in different regions. The military significance lessened over the course of the centuries and became meaningless with the creation of regular troops and garrisons for national defence. The Schützenfests however continued in the form of a regional patriotic tradition.

Switzerland

Schützenfests played a central role in the Old Swiss Confederacy, during the 15th century, participants shooting the crossbow, contributing significantly to the coherence between the individual cantons. The Schützenfest of 1849 in Aarau figures prominently in Gottfried Kellers Das Fähnlein der sieben Aufrechten, where Keller portrays the shooting clubs as vital for the preservation of direct democracy in the young Swiss federal state. Today a Swiss Federal Schützenfest counts 50’000 marksmen during 4 weeks.

Eidgenössische (federal) Schützenfest are organized by the Schweizerischer Schützenverein since 1824.

Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation (Latin: Confoederatio Helvetica, hence its abbreviation CH), is a federal parliamentary republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities, the so-called Bundesstadt (“federal city”). The country is situated in Western and Central Europe, where it is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a landlocked country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning an area of 41,285 km² (15,940 sq mi). While the Alps occupy the greater part of the territory, the Swiss population of approximately 8 million people is concentrated mostly on the Plateau, where the largest cities are to be found. Among them are the two global cities and economic centres of Zürich and Geneva.

The establishment of the Swiss Confederation is traditionally dated to 1 August 1291, which is celebrated annually as Swiss National Day. It has a long history of armed neutrality-it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815-and did not join the United Nations until 2002. It pursues, however, an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world. Switzerland is also the birthplace of the Red Cross and home to numerous international organizations, including the second largest UN office. On the European level, it is a founding member of the European Free Trade Association and is part of the Schengen Area – although it is notably not a member of the European Union, nor the European Economic Area. Switzerland comprises four main linguistic and cultural regions: German, French, Italian and the Romansh-speaking valleys. Therefore, the Swiss, although predominantly German-speaking, do not form a nation in the sense of a common ethnic or linguistic identity; rather, the strong sense of identity and community is founded on a common historical background, shared values such as federalism and direct democracy, and Alpine symbolism.

Switzerland has the highest nominal wealth per adult (financial and non-financial assets) in the world according to Credit Suisse and eighth-highest per capita gross domestic product on the IMF list. However, Switzerland is also the most expensive country in the world to live in, as measured by the price level index.

Swiss citizens have the second-highest life expectancy in the world on the UN DESA list. Switzerland is tied with the Netherlands for the top rank on the Bribe Payers Index indicating very low levels of business corruption. Moreover, for the last five years the country has been ranked first in economic and tourist competitiveness according to the Global Competitiveness Report and the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report respectively, both developed by the World Economic Forum. Zürich and Geneva have each been ranked among the top cities with the highest quality of life in the world, with the former coming second globally according to Mercer. However, Mercer also rates those two cities as the fifth- and sixth- most expensive cities in the world to live in.