Gold investment medal 1 Kg T.G.Masaryk Motif 5000 CZK banknote 2010 Standard

T. G. Masaryk Gold Kilo Medal

The medal is the first of the series "Czech banknotes on Czech medals". It is accompanied by a graphic sheet with a portrait of T. G. Masaryk, which is numbered and signed by the author, ac. painter Oldřich Kulhánek.

On the obverse side of the medal is a portrait of T. G. Masaryk with lime branches on the left and right side as a symbol of Slavicism.

The reverse side is a stylistically depicted fragment from the reverse side of the banknote, which shows the most famous Prague historical monuments - Prague Castle, St. Nicholas Cathedral and the Old Town Hall. The Gothic emblems of Prague and Bohemia are placed at the top. Limited edition of 150 pieces, numbered on the edge.

Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk

Prof. Dr. Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (7 March 1850 Hodonín - 14 September 1937 Lány) was an educator, politician and philosopher. In 1918 he became the first Czechoslovak president.

From the age of 15, he supported himself as a home tutor for the children of wealthy parents. At the grammar school in Brno he was supported by one of them, the family of the police director Anton Le Monnier, with whom he went to Vienna in 1869 to finish his studies at the Academic Gymnasium. After graduation (1872), he began his studies at the Faculty of Philosophy. During his studies he met Franz Brentano, a new professor of philosophy who came to Vienna in April 1874.

After the death of Anton Le Monnier, in 1873, he found a new lucrative position as hofmistre in the family of Rudolf Schlessinger, general councilor of the Anglo-Austrian Bank, whose son he taught. As a reward for the young Schlessinger's successful graduation, after Masaryk's doctorate (1876) they went together on a tour of Italy and a year's stay at the University of Leipzig. There Masaryk met Charlotte Garrigue, the daughter of a New York businessman, and they were engaged on 10 August 1877.

On 29 April 1918 Masaryk arrived in the USA and on 5 May, to his surprise, he was received in Chicago by cheering crowds, asked to give speeches, and showered with flowers. He experienced a similar reception by a quarter of a million compatriots on the streets of New York. In America, he organized a great campaign of persuasion among American Czechs and Slovaks in support of an independent state. On May 30, they signed an agreement on a common state in Pittsburgh. In Philadelphia, he was elected president of the Democratic Association of Small Central European and South Slavic Nations and signed and proclaimed their Declaration of Independence at the Liberty Bell.

Masaryk negotiated with diplomats of many countries, organized news coverage, wrote for newspapers and lectured. Masaryk's good contacts with the leaders of his countrymen and influential figures from his previous visits to his wife's family and public appearances also helped to convince the American public and statesmen of the Czechoslovak cause. He managed to reach President Wilson and convince him that the demands of the conquered peoples of the Austrian monarchy were justified - on 18 October Wilson publicly retracted his previous position, contributed to the disintegration of the ruined Austro-Hungarian Empire, and thus supported the creation of Czechoslovakia. Masaryk's Washington Declaration thus became, in effect, the founding charter of the new democratic Czechoslovak state, the Czechoslovak Republic.