BRITISH, Hanover. temp. Victoria, 1837-1901. Medal 1860 (Tin, 31 mm, 8.65 g, 12 h), commemorating a travel with the S. S. 'Great Eastern'. By. G. H. Lovett. The S. S. 'Great Eastern' steaming into a harbor in front of a crowd of rejoicing spectators. Rev. PURCHASED ON BOARD THE GREAT EASTERN / 1860 around TONNAGE / 24.000 / HORSE POWER / 2.600 / LENGTH 692 FT. / BREDTH 83 FT / DEPTH 60 FT in eight lines. BHM 2687. Light marks and scratches, otherwise, good extremely fine.


Built in 1854-1859, the S. S. 'Great Eastern' surpassed anything the world had ever seen in sheer size. With a displacement of 32,160 tones fully loaded, the ship far ahead of its time and six times larger than her largest competitor at the time. She had a previously unimaginable passenger capacity of 4,000 and remained the largest ship at sea for more than four decades. However, the ship was plagued by problems and never made a profit for its owners due to a lack of passengers. As the only ship large enough to carry the transatlantic telegraph cable, she found a new role as a cable layer in 1866, but her size made her unsuitable for passage through the newly opened Suez Canal, and she was eventually decommissioned in the early 1870s and sold for scrapping in the late 1880s.