The "Great World Religions" or "Great Religions of the World" series is one of my favorite medal series by Presidential Art Medals, Inc.

As told by Dr. David Poling in his book Why Billy Graham?, the indomitable Ralph J. Menconi had just completed a set of stained-glass windows in a Lutheran Church in Pleasantville, New York. He had developed a deep interest in the symbolism of religion and man's search for God. Now he was anxious to get started on a medal series that would focus on religions and the personalities that shaped religious history: Moses, Paul, Luther, and others. The series would be manufactured by the Medallic Art Company and marketed through Presidential Art Medals of Vandalia, Ohio.

Menconi's objective was to convey "the strong points of each tradition, both its feelings and its history, its spirit and its heritage" to followers of the other religions. While Menconi himself was a Roman Catholic, there was a deep oecumenical spirit behind this project.

Religion has of course always been a difficult topic. While a medal series that appealed to the faithful of many different religions seemed a worthy project as well as a smart business idea, there was also the risk of offending people of faith by using incorrect or offensive imagery. To treat all religions justly and reduce the risks of offending an entire segment of the population in one fell swoop, Menconi asked Dr. Poling to select an advisory board to assist with design decisions and make sure that religious symbols were used appropriately. The board was called the "International Advisory Commission of the Great Religions of the World Art Medals Series" (put that on a business card!) and consisted of:

Commissioners

• Dr. David Poling
• Dr. Billy Graham
• The Reverend Fulton J. Sheen
• Dr. Norman Vincent Peale
• Erwin D. Canham
• George Romney
• Dr. Hans W. Florin
• Dr. Mohammed Kamel Hussein
• Rev. George Marshall
• The Reverend Canon Edward N. West
• Dr. A. Dale Fiers

Consultants

• David Ben-Gurion
• Dr. Charles Malik
• Dr. Firuz Kazemzadeh

The full series was supposed to encompass 25 religions or religious organizations. The medals were to be released at a rate of one per month starting in 1971. Unfortunately, Menconi died in 1972 before he could complete the full series that was so important to him. Only 16 of the planned 25 medals had been designed at the time of his untimely death. Adlai S. Hardin completed two more medals which were issued in 1974 and 1975, bringing the total number of medals in the series to 18. It's a shame that the series was not completed to include the missing world religions. As it stands, it looks very strange to have so many Christian faiths included while major world religions such as Hinduism or Taoism are missing.

There is very little information available on how many medals were actually struck. The collateral for the series states only that the medals are issued in unnumbered bronze, antiqued silver limited to 10,000, and gold-filled (1/10th, 14kt.) limited to 500. Whether that many medals were actually sold is not known. I suspect that the numbers fell far short of the authorized mintages because the silver and gold-filled variants do not come up often at auction at all.