Do Coins Belong in a Museum?

I think Indian Jones is not getting a fair shake. He only said that specific cross belonged in a museum, but not necessarily all antiquities. His view is largely consistent with the PAS.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Of course coins belong in museums. But that doesn't mean that they only belong in museums. There are more than enough to go around, for the most part.

I think it is fantastic for museums to maintain accessible collections of rare coins, and even common ones, since that is the only way in which many members of the general public will ever be exposed to them.

There is also great usefulness in maintaining collections which seek to catalogue all known coin types to ensure preservation and to facilitate research. There's also nothing wrong with museums maintaining hoards of poor quality coins, even off display, if they were discovered in context together, since that also facilitates research and there are, for the most part, more than enough to go around for everyone.

 

I question the value of entire hoards of similar coins being kept by museums, especially when high-grade coins are piled together in display cases.

 

There might be better ways of presenting them, but at the same time it does give viewers a good perspective of the scale of the find. But hoards in recorded context like that are extremely valuable - without finds like those we wouldn't be able to date our coins. RIC and Crawford draw heavily on finds like to get a chronology. They also reveal a lot about military, social and economic conditions in the area which they were found.

But I do see your point about the display. There are better ways of showing the iconography, but at least they are

 

The UK has a great system. When a metal detectorist find a coin/ hoard/ the state declares it treasure. Experts then are called in to properly excavate/ sort/ catalogue the coins/ artifacts. When this is complete, the finder is given the facts on his/her find. If the 'treasure" was found on a landowners property, then they also have a share in the proceeds. Lets say it was a hoard of 50 AV Celtic Staters/ valued at 150K pounds. The museum would be allowed to make a fair market offer/ however if the finder wants to keep the coins,his share would be half/ the landowner then could do the same.....or sell them to a museum/ auction. The opposite is true in Israel, where more draconian rules exist. Here the state will seize the find/ no compensation/ even jailtime if you flaunt that law. Back to the UK, their museums are doing just fine, also private collectors are happy, win, win for all. Romania is still crying about that hoard of AV Staters from Koson that where secretly whisked away, most going to auction, and now finding really good homes in private collection/ including mine, another win, win Here is mine.

 

Agree, UK has a good balance that incentivises people to report finds. The split between finder and landowner isn’t in the legislation, it’s just agreed between landowner and finder. It is typically 50/50.

 

I completely agree about archaeological importance, but there is no need for museum to keep all the coins. There are probably millions of pounds worth of duplicates from hoards at the British Museum. Better to spend the money on something else, in my view.

 

Sometimes employees and curators of museums make sure coins do not stay in dusty basements forever..............
https://www.coinsweekly.com/en/News/Further-Thefts-at-Royal-Coin-Cabinet-Brought-to-Trial/4?&id=5805

 

I had searched to see if this topic had been addressed here, but didn't see what you had referenced. It was prompted by thoughts I have had on this subject for quite some time. I recall going to the Smithsonian to see their coins, which were kept in an ill lit room. On the other hand, I did go to a museum in Philadelphia (just do not recall the name) which had a magnificent well presented collection. I am inclined to agree that if the museum truly takes care of the coins and has them properly displayed, then great. But, if they are rotting away in a basement, then they should be sold.

By the way, I had asked in one of my other notes what had happened to the huge number of coins sold during the great Eastern European coin dispersal of the 2000's. I guess the coins simply stay in collections.

 

I'm sorry, my bad. If it hasn't been discussed on Cointalk before, perhaps I'm thinking of the extensive threads on the ACM-L yahoo group, which unfortunately doesn't seem to be archived anywhere that I can find. You might also consider checking out the following resources:

https://coinweek.com/opinion/commentary/museums-hate-ancient-coins/

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=95913.0

http://www.accg.us/projects/hooker-papers.aspx

https://paul-barford.blogspot.com/search?q=museums+coins

 

Traditionally there has been a great deal of co-operation between museums and collectors, all to the good of our general understanding of the past. But to a large extent, that was because numismatic museum staff were themselves recruited from private collectors. Increasingly they are recruited from academically trained archaeologists. This is leading to a bunch of problems, to do with over-specialisation/lack of a general overview, also a tenancy to dismissive, condescending and even hostile attitudes to collectors.

By chance I can illustrate some aspects of this from your own photo Curtisimo. Take a look at items 10 and 11 in your photo (below). To the casual observer I suppose from the context they would be taken to be early Roman republican weights? But if the captions are correct – they are massively overweight, with an ounce up at about 29g. Now we have texts from just after 600 AD suggesting that in late Roman times there were two pounds – the well known one of 72 solidi (96 denarii), and a heavy one of 75 solidi (100 denarii). But even that is not high enough.

Anyhow – when I visited that museum myself I spotted the problem and found the young lady who had the job of explaining exhibits to visitors – and asked her for guidance (Are the captions correct?, Where did the weights come from? etc.) She was very pleasant – but we immediately hit a catch-22 problem. It seemed to me she was saying the only person who could be allowed to comment on such an important problem was the museum director himself. But at the same time, the museum director was far too important to be disturbed………………..

These are complex matters. There are questions to be addressed about the workload and indeed pay scales these days at big museums. Also maybe about a sort of celebrity culture creeping into rather politicised selection procedures for the panels of trustees. All very complicated. But it all seems to add up to the knowledgeable amateur being edged out, and that seems to me, a bad thing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

This is a waste of space - just a bunch of piled metal indicating laziness and disrespect to the items these people should be preserving - the curators should be ashamed of themselves!

I have never seen a better argument for keeping ancient coins out of museums.

 

I am not certain the the main function of museums are to display items for public viewing. One of their more important functions is to serve as a platform for research. Most of the books that we use today RIC, Price RPC and many others have as their basis the massive collections stored at places such as the British Museum or the Ashmoleon, the Bibliotheque Nationale the ANS the Bode Museum just to name a few. True everything said so far in this thread is mostly accurate. ( The Bode was where the "100 Kg Giant Canadian Gold Maple leaf" was stolen) I myself have done research on subjects that have interested me in the British Museum and the ANS. I have found the staff courteous and helpful. One comment though. One member thought that Dekadrachms belong in a museum. Syracusian Dekadrachms of the Euainetos type are rather common and i have one and I don't think it belongs in a museum
Dekadrachm of Syracuse 405-400 BC Obv Charioteer driving quadriga left. Rv. Head of Arethusa left surrounded by four dolphins. Gallatin R XIII F VI 42.65 grms 35 mm Photo by W. Hansen

 

I think if they survived for a couple of thousand years in the ground, they'll survive being piled in a display case for a few decades. Besides, how do you know that they weren't cleaned, photographed, and studied before being put in the display case? I don't think people who work at museums can accurately be described as lazy for the most part.

 

This is a complex matter, I think. Consider how much museums and curators have contributed, with the BMC books, SNG Cop, etc, etc. We would be poorer without them.
Then again, consider that every collector worth his salt has been able to create a photo library, complete or not, of his/her collection, and been able to share this with others who are interested in coins. For free, no entrance money! How many museums provide this opportunity for us in 2020? They have had several years to do this, but no capacity it seems.

I actually love museums, because they provide us with the opportunity to behold our common heritage. But that opportunity is not present if coins are rotting in the basement. So I think Pavlos got this right. Coins belong to those who take care of them, study them, and share their knowledge and beauty.

 

There are so many caveats to a post like this it makes it very easy to pick apart a comment on either side of the debate. That being said.....

I believe high quality museums, with trained numismatists, should have the pick of rare historically significant coins before private collectors. And by before, I include in that to mean without having to compete in price for the coin with a Mr. Moneybags private collector.

 

Museums are a double edged sword. Yes they have numismatic material in one place that can be viewed by the public for pleasure or research simply by asking, but secondly they don't usually have a full inventory available for scrutiny. The down-side of this is of course you can't ask to see an item you don't know is there. The saying 'Out of sight, out of mind' is applicable. With the larger museums having collections of literally hundreds of thousands of coins, a full inventory is the only practical way for interested persons to identify what they wish to view. Because of this, I personally find that museums frequently save things from the public, rather than for the public.

The financial resources necessary to provide access to the collections are a current problem in the UK. With staffing kept to a minimum and a member of staff required to accompany anyone going into the back office where the majority of the collection is kept, it is difficult to fit in individual visits around the various school trips and other duties.

There is a case to be made for museums having an example of each die used for example as their main purpose in life is to save historical items for posterity. Indeed, the Clarke-Thornhill bequest to the BM in 1935 stipulated they could take any coin from his collection where they didn't have an example of a coin from the die. The BM did very well out of this and Baldwin's were a bit miffed, as the 1937 sale was only a fraction of the original collection.

From some collectors' viewpoint, the 5500 coins in the Lenborough hoard acquired by a museum usefully stopped the market being flooded with Cnut pennies, which would have depressed prices for those who worry about such things.

As collectors we all have the right to dispose of our collections as we see fit. Some will sell up, some will bequeath the collection or part of it to a museum, occasionally a museum will acquire a collection in lieu of death duties (e.g. Peck's George III Soho patterns went to Birmingham Museum in lieu).

There's no one size fits all solution.

 

Museum collections should be for research and thus put on line and some on display for encouragement of others.
My own chief moan is access for research....kicked out of the Museum in Fethiye for asking to look at the other side of the NewStyles and moaning when they appeared to know nothing about them.....and then my enquires into the part of the Poggio Picenze Haord lGCH 2056 in the Chiete Museum. This has run into the sand. After enlisting the help of the Italian Embassy in London my request for metrics and photographs of the NewStyles in the hoard, they told me that a "scholar" was working on the Hoard.
That was TWO years ago.
Now ALL the tetradrachms in the hoard are EASILY classifiable pretty much leaving the Achaean Triobols and any Republican denerii as the only real research problems.
How long does it take?
I myself offered to classify the NewStyles and publish them on academia and that using the NSSCA and my own resources wouldn't take more than 6 weeks or so. The other tetradrachms are readily identifiable via Prof. deCallatay's "Le Historie des Guerres........" and Morkholm already had done the tetradrachms of Ariarathes lX in Essays Robinson.
If I know this what does a genuine scholar know?
Maybe someone can break into the Chiete Museum and liberate the NewStyles from their prison.

For more of my moans read;The Odyssey of the Poggio Picenze Hoard IGCH 2056 and The British Museum, UNESCO 1970 , coin collectors and me. On my academia.edu page under my name John Arnold Nisbet.


A picture of some of the NewStyles in the Chieti Museum from the Poggio Picenze Hoard from the internet.

I wonder what's on the yellow card above....anyone live near the museum?

 

I am all for depressed prices due to an abundance of coins. Last time it happened the hobby was filled with new collectors. I think it was a once in a life time thing.

I was at a museum in Philly some years ago which had beautiful coins. Next time I went only a few were on display. The rest in storage.