Why Museums Hate Ancient Coins

Not at all! Museums are attractions of the future but those of us who enjoy the past may not recognize their connection to the past. I see it as the difference between reading history and reading historical novels. Asking if museums are things of the past is a bit funny. That is my main complaint about them. Rather than being places where you can go to see many things of the past, they tend to be places you can go to see a few things and be saved having to learn too much. I used to go to a museum and be inspired to read up on something I saw. Now I go and see what some recent graduate in museum studies thought I should see while they played a documentary from the History Channel.

Has anyone seen a coin exhibit consisting of plaster casts painted to look like coins? I was anxious to see 'Rome and The Germans', a travelling exhibit prepared by a guy who I went to college with. I bought the book that accompanied it. At least the book photos were of the coins. The exhibit was all plaster nicely painted to look real.

BTW: I believe the most accurate historical TV production is Game of Thrones. Not once have I caught them making an error in fact or spirit compared to the historical period and place they cover. Can you say that about any other production? The Boston exhibit includes a facility for you to design your own ancient coin. Mine will show a girl holding a long list and a small sword.

 

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=> yup, she is a fantastic character!!

 

Museum of Northern Arizona isn't bad. A little small, and devoted to local history(ancient and nartual).

http://www.musnaz.org/exhibits/index.shtml

edit:
I should had added the Pioneer museum and Riordan Mansion, both are small. Also our observatory has a small exhibit.

http://www.arizonahistoricalsociety.org/museums/welcome-to-pioneer-museum-flagstaff/

http://azstateparks.com/Parks/RIMA/

http://www.lowell.edu/

 

If having coins is not a requirement, I liked the Wayne County Indiana Museum. Not a single coin but they do have a mummified Ichneumon. Comparitively speaking, that is a lot more rare than EID MAR.

 

I just spent the better part of the last week in NYC and a good portion of that trip was to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I didn't expect to see any coins but they did have a very nice array as part of their very impressive Greek exhibit, with an Athens dekadrachm, Twelve Caesars set in varied metals, and a few dozen fine style Greek silver/gold coins. Unfortunately, some of the coins were heavily smoothed and repatinated but to those not in-the-know, they were still visually strong examples.

It pales in comparison to what the British Museum has on display (their Akragas dekadrachm is to die for) but it is still probably about the right amount of what I would expect to see there.

Coins are not as obviously impressive as a large marble sculpture, but I think museums could do a bit more work to make them more accessible. I went to the Chicago Art Institute Museum last summer and thought they did it well. They had some coins suspended in glass cases and others with iPads in-front of them with quality images and descriptions.

I find the disconnect between value and display prominence intriguing: they had a common Mark Antony/Octavia cistophorus in a glass display to show it on all sides and a wonderful mint state Otho aureus just alongside a number of other quality aurei in a table-top display.

To the post about being three feet away from coins: most of these museums let you get quite close. In all of the displays I've seen, my face is generally just a few inches away from the coins, losing none of the detail. The British Museum has a particularly fantastic display of the history of money (sponsored by Citibank - that's some quality product placement!) including an EID MAR and Colosseum sestertius, as well as a curator allowing you to hold a heavily polished Athens tetradrachm.

Personally, I would love for museums to sell off their collections of coins, but I think they still serve a purpose and I've always seen several people admiring them, so they must draw interest.

 

I have happily visited many museums in Europe and the US with antiquities and enjoyed them. If they had ancient coins on display, that was a big bonus. That said, as part of a long car trip I visited a coin friend last week who lives over 1000 miles away. We communicate by e-mail and sometimes by phone, but I have seen him only twice before in 20 years. He brought home from the bank boxes of his ancient coins for me to see. We spent hours viewing his coins in hand, sometimes with a magnifying glass, and discussing them, sometimes including where he got them, what he thinks of the dealer, and occasionally how much they cost. Nothing was for sale; it was viewing and conversation. A wonderful and memorable experience!

Comparing visiting a museum and visiting a collector, visiting a serious collector wins hands down.

 

I think your missing my point. I've done several displays at my local library (none on ancients yet) and all of them have received a decent amount of attention. It's probably a good idea to do it in a more secure location (like a bank0, but my point is that if museums won't do a good job of displaying this stuff to the public, we need to step up.
I'm not talking about mega exhibits, just one case informational displays.

 

that's just what I was thinking, hanging out with a coin buddy and checking out coins would probably beat a museum view for most of us. sounds like a cool time VAL!

 

very interesting thread-good comments-----I come from somerset in the west of England.the village of shapwick has provided the following roman hoards 1868 14 coins--1936-1938 4 hoards 1978 an hoard of 1008 coins-1998 hoard of 9238 coins found-,these are now in the county museum taunton.I went to see them had a fantastic time with a number of fellow coin buffs looking and giving opinions on what they knew,museum presented them well ,free admission donation accepted.a good crowd looking.this is what museums should do in my opinion.
shapwick must have a great story to tell of roman times and is a thankfull village (who knows what that means )

 

It is a matter of opinion. I would prefer someone at the museum who has the ability to sort the 10k+ coins into groups and arrange trades with other small museums so each might have a display more generally of what each separately lacked. If there are huge numbers of the same thing, they could be sold in the gift shop. Instead, we see pride in quantities of coins displayed as a pile with no one knowing what is underneath. Below is what the best museum in the world sees fit to do with piles of their duplicates. I know, by BM standards they are just junk aurei not worth showing individually. Perhaps if I were to find 10k coins in my backyard, I would feel akin to each and every one but my current attitude is that no one person or entity needs a thousand duplicates just because they can. Has anyone published, photographed or identified those 10k+ coins or are they just in a box in the basement waiting for local coin buffs to show interest?

 

the coins are on show to everyone,and are constantly being researched,my friend a museum curator states that they do not sell items because of on going research,new systems can tell us more all the time-and might just tell us what went on there------shapwick a thankfull village--rare no one killed in the first world war.
interesting topic

 

I'm a little late to this party but I found the article very interesting. Thanks for posting it Mat. The fact that museums would consider ancient coins a bother is something I never would have considered.

What I've found, as many have opined on this thread, is that sharing my love for coins with other collectors is a great thing. The internet is a fantastic tool for facilitating this, and may be the wave of the future as the article intimated, but there's nothing like seeing coins first hand, in person. I enjoy going to a museum to look at coins. I haven't really visited any museums that feature ancients since I started collecting them. But last Summer I did visit the old Carson City mint out in Nevada which has a phenomenal collection of CC minted coins. Morgan Dollars, Trade Dollars and CC Gold coins. That was a sight to behold! One example of every coin date and type ever minted in Carson City. There are some rare and expensive coins in that collection I can assure you. But I liked it because I'm a coin collector. Many people just walked past that particular display giving it only a cursory look.

As Doug mentioned though, there is something special about the hunt for the collector. It adds something to the experience if I'm looking at coins that I might actually buy.

Then again, I'd definitely get some serious "Wow Factor" going to a museum to view coins that are so beautiful, rare and expensive that they would be unobtainable by me. I think coin displays and exhibits will maintain their place in museums simply because coins reflect so much about the history and culture of the society which minted them.

 

Off topic, but if you like Game of Thrones and the attention to detail (as I do), you have to watch this video:

 

Actually I go to coin shows party to see a lot of coins up close that I don't intend on buying lol... and I love it when they have coin exhibits somewhere (last coin show I went to had ANA's 1913 Liberty nickel on display, as well as an 1804 silver dollar; I got to see Israel Switt's 10 1933 double eagles at the World Series of Money when it came to Denver a few years ago).

Numismatics is a niche field of interest, and isn't going to draw the big crowds as much as more well known pieces of history and pop culture will. Can't be helped, unfortunately. I've seen more ancient coins in coin stores than in museums. I have seen a few places that give decent respect to coinage: The British Museum comes to mind, big time, but Costa Rica has a great coin museum in San Jose, despite having a relatively short history of coinage.

ANA has a great museum in Colorado Springs that's worth have an ANA membership all by itself. Mostly just US coins though.

I've heard people remark on the irony that buffalo ranchers are the main reason buffaloes are still conserved. Ancient coins are probably going to be the same way lol... private collectors are probably keeping them in the spotlight better than museums are.

 

So after reading Doug's post about the Boston exhibit, I looked it up online and found that they have an iPad/iPhone app that you can peruse the coins (and flip them over). Interesting way to display them - I will be checking it out not only to see the coins, but to see if the app is well designed. Maybe it will be something that other museums can share? App store link is at the bottom (scroll down).

http://www.mfa.org/collections/featured-galleries/michael-c-ruettgers-gallery-ancient-coins

Michael C. Ruettgers Gallery for Ancient Coins
Gallery 212C

• 

The MFA’s new coin gallery—the only permanent exhibition space for ancient coins in a US art museum—showcases more than 500 Greek and Roman coins from our collections.

The gallery is named in recognition of Michael C. Ruettgers, whose generosity has made possible the creation of this spectacular new installation. In addition, Mr. Ruettgers has given 14 rare and important Roman gold coins to the MFA, including Aureus with the bust of Aelius Verus (AD 137). Drawing from the Museum’s collection of approximately 7,500 ancient coins, the gallery’s thematic and chronological displays emphasize ancient coins as highly sophisticated, beautiful works of art on a miniature scale, while also exploring the cultural and political history they embody. Sculpture, vases, and other works of art are on view alongside coins in the gallery. Visitors can "create" their own coins in a touch screen activity, choosing symbols, motto, metal, and learning the elements of a coin by designing one.

Developed exclusively for the coin gallery, a free iPad application allows visitors to zoom and pan through a multitude of coins, as well as flip them over for a detailed view.

 

So are academic archaeologists ancient junk and rubbish collectors/curators?