Medals

They are usually made to commemorate important individuals or events. Medal making originated in Renaissance Italy, and the first people in the Netherlands to commemorate themselves with a medal did so around 1500. Some creators used the medal as a medium for artistic expression. There are also medals with specific practical purposes such as recording current events, like jetons, which were used as counter tokens when making calculations. Members of guilds used guild medals as tokens to indicate that they were present. Over the course of the 20th century, the shape of medals gradually shifted from the traditional disc to three-dimensional handheld sculptures.