I'm in Washington dc right now and I stopped by the museum of American history where the collection is supposed to be but all I saw was a little corner display of US rarities, just a group of about 50 pieces or so, not even close to the apparent 1.6 million pieces the museum is supposed to have. Where in the building is the collection, physically? Anyone know the floor? East? West? Am I missing something here?
Why didn't you ask someone who worked there? Maybe some of the exhibits travel to other museums from time to time, or isn't on display as you say. I don't know much about the smithsonian hopefully someone else does.
American History museum - first floor. If you enter from the mall, go to your right, take the escalator down one floor, itll be in front of you on your right.
Last I heard...the collection is not on display and hasn't been for some time. I remember seeing it when I was there in 1999. I could be wrong though.
Sorry - just read the entire post. I see you found the room. That is all of the collection that is on display. The smithsonian museums have too much to display at one time, and certain pieces are also used for research purposes and as such are not on public display. You can view all of the pieces here: http://collections.si.edu/search/results.jsp?q=coins&image.x=0&image.y=0
Nice link. If you want to see a larger exhibit, come to the Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh which houses one of the world's largest collections. At one time, the collection numbered over 100,000 pieces but in the early 80's much was sold off due to lack of space and including many duplicates. The remaining collection numbers some 14,000 pieces and is a must-see if you're ever in the area.
The collection was put into storage several years ago and there are currently no plans (or funds) to put it back on display. The best you will ever see are the small exhibits like the one you have already seen or a few pieces shown as part of another exhibit. (One of the annoying things to me is that the Smithsonian commemoratives issued back in 1996 were originally intended to establish an endowment for the Numismatic collection that would have funded new exhibits, or research, or even new acquisitions. Instead at the last moment the legislation was changed to turn over half of the surcharges to the Smithsonian general fund, and since the numismatic section was getting these new funds their budget was cut that year and the surcharge wound up going mostly to salaries for the dept that year instead. So the endowment was never established. I have often thought that redirecting of the funds was one of the reasons the sale of the Smithsonian coins was rather poor. (That and the program burnout caused by the huge number of Olympic coins issued that year.) I know the redirect was the reason I didn't order any. I don't normally buy stuff from the Mint, but for the purpose of establishing that endowment I was willing to. When they redirected the funds, I lost all interest. Don't get me wrong, I like and support the Smithsonian, but this struck me as a bait and switch money grab. Currently Heritage is working on a consignment/donation auction the proceeds of which are intended to establish an endowmwnt for the Smithsonian numismatic dept.
Well written, informative, and spot on accurate response. I wish I had something to add. Edit: Actually I do. Rhino, if you are in Washinton DC try to go to the Dumbarton Oaks museum. It is right near the Natural History museum, across the street from it, in a meadow like thing. It has the world foremost collection of Byzantine coins in the world, as well as Precolumbian artifacts. Their books from their collection are the greatest resource for Byzantine collectors.
