Registry
Registry. A list of subscribers to limited issue objects recorded by serial number, or a list of owners of individual medals. Listing the names in a registry exists only as far as original purchasers or owners; obviously these people can dispose of their medals without notifying or changing the registry. Also issuers maintain a registry for items, as key tag medals, which bear a serial number on the back (often with a statement to drop the ring of keys in a mailbox, the issuer will guarantee postage). The medals are issued with a card bearing the same number as stamped on the medal with request to mail the card back to the issuer. Then lost keys can be returned to the owner by use of this registry.
Access to a registry would be useful in traceable research, or in compiling a pedigree or provenance (for more valuable medals). Registries of these medal owners have frequently been created but are usually destroyed when the issuers go out of business (these lists are so seldom archived that this research can rarely occur).excerpted with permission from
An Encyclopedia of Coin and Medal Technology
For Artists, Makers, Collectors and Curators
COMPILED AND WRITTEN BY D. WAYNE JOHNSON