Mislabeled coins in a museum

Hey everyone!.....Just thought I’d share this. I visited the Rom today and noticed that two coins from the Roman display case were seemingly mislabeled.

An Alexandrian tetradrachm of Tranquillina took the place of a sestertius of Julia Mamaea and vice versa. In any case, I’m probably the only one who noticed...the display doesn’t seem to be the most popular!



Has anyone else ever spotted mislabeled coins at a museum?

 

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Not in a museum, but I was reading through «The coin atlas» from Time/Warner the other day. I noticed quite a few errors describing Norwegian coins, and rather easy facts to get right. This led me to lose trust in the whole book.

 

By the Rom, do you mean the Royal Ontario Museum? I'm in Toronto for the weekend visiting my son (he's in the Art History PhD program at the U of T) and we're going to that museum tomorrow. I didn't know they had a coin collection on display -- if so, I'll make sure we take a look!

 

@DonnaML Yes the Royal Ontario Museum. Their collection is comprehensive. There are few ancient coin displays all located on the top floor in the Greek, Roman and Byzantine galleries: Greek Civic coins, Hellenistic coins, Roman Imperial coins (Augustus to Honorius), and Byzantine coins (this is a little less comprehensive), as well as a few ancient Celtic coins. There is a Republican coinage display, but as of today, all of the coins (except for an aureus of Julius Caesar) were taken off display for "conservation". In any case, if you've never been to the ROM before it's worth the visit. I believe it has the largest collection of antiquities in Canada (busts, statues, mosaics, jewellery, coins...etc.).

 

I'm in the ROM almost every weekend. I hadn't noticed but then again, that's not my coin collecting focus. I'll have to look this afternoon when I'm there. I like that the ROM coins are all over the galleries rather than in one place. They also have quite a collection of cast Roman republican coins in the Greek gallery off in the corner.

Some of the highlights of the ROM are the lifetime bust of Cleopatra (1 of 2), the Babylonian throne room striding lion (1 of only 3), the Corinthian helmet from Marathon (only one) and the amazing bust of Lucius Verus.

BTW nice meeting you at Torex! Now we can put a face to the name.

 

@Jay GT4 Nice meeting you too! You’re the first from this forum I’ve met!

Unfortunately, I think the bust of Cleopatra is off display. The last few times I visited it hasn’t been in its usual spot. Perhaps it was loaned or simply stored for conservation.

 

Thanks -- I can't wait! My son tells me that there's also a wonderful Asian art collection.

 

Thank you! Sounds wonderful.

 

I didn't take a photo, but a couple years back I visited the National Roman Museum in the Baths of Diocletian. When I looked up my avatar - Roman Republican denarius of L. Censorinus with Marsyas on the reverse, it was mislabeled. As I recall, it wasn't even close. Maybe they've since fixed it - I did not lodge a complaint.

Still, it is a fantastic collection. And nearby you can see the Regalia of Maxentius.

 

Enjoy your time at the ROM. It has some great collections. Do not forget to visit the Dinos.

 

She's back! Cleopatra is by Hapshetsut's wall leading into Rome.

And yes...don't forget the Dinos

 

My wife and I will visit Niagara Falls in May. I am hoping to wrangle a trip to the museum. I bought a Byzantine Empress Steelyard Scale Weight in January, and someone from the ROM who said they have one. I hope to see what their's looks like.

PS - I need to find the "best" yarn shop in Toronto (or on the drive between) to sell the idea. Any suggestions?

 

I couldn't find my picture of this when this thread was posted some days ago but I happened to find myself in London again and dropped by the British Museum to take another.

Mistakes like this are fairly rare in the BM and I told Andrew Burnett about it the last time I saw him but alas, re-printing cards is challenging.

I'm glad the market doesn't think tetradrachms are dekadrachms... if so, collecting Greek silver would be an exercise in futility!

 

I was puzzled by this in the recent @DonnaML thread with photo's from Toronto ?

 

The auction tale is good Hollywood and probably has an element of truth with some polish. That 25000 figure expressed in denarii would be 6250 or 250 aurei. How (and if???) the money was paid is a question but one suggestion is that he was a bit short and did not deliver the full sum up front. I might even seem that soldiers learning that their windfall promise was to be paid over ten years or some such arrangement might have been less than thrilled with their selection. Septimius replaced the Praetorian Guard with his own select troops but I am also unclear on how many of the old Guard were executed rather than just fired. The old saying about history being written by the victors applies here so we do not have a fair record of the event details. I might add that history also is written by those brave enough to write it and 193 AD was not a good time to write anything not favorable to Septimius Severus. What we know about Didius and Pescennius most certainly has a Severan spin.

It seems to me that there are a lot of coins of Didius, Manlia and Didia that have survived. Are there too many for a 66 day reign or was the payment made in a mixed bag of denominations? I have no idea. Does anyone? Today, Lottery/Powerball winners understand up front that their multimillion dollar winnings will be paid in 20 annual payments unless they opt for the considerably reduced lump sum payment. Would a soldier hearing Didius' offer have expected a lump sum or were donatives usually paid on some 'plan'? I don't know. We all wish more ancient people kept diaries full of little details but such things do not survive if they ever existed. As it is, we must walk a fine line between history from primary sources (however biased they might be) and historical fiction whether it was written within a thousand years or not. I find 193 AD a fascinating year but I am still quite glad I was not there to see these events play out in person. Betting on the wrong horse carried a penalty.

 

Yes @THCoins I mean't to include that too, but I forgot! I'm actually surprised at the number of mistakes on that display.

 

This sort of thing happens routinely. You can report it to the nearest person in charge and know that you're wasting your time so mostly I just roll my eyes and take it easy.

You also need to remember that there might be several people involved in the presentation of an artifact. The "expert" may do the selection and the writeup only to hand it off to interns who put together the display case and something always gets lost in translation.

Rasiel

 

I reported a spelling error Ceasar to the local art museum and six months later I noted the ID card was corrected. I was then invited to meet the curator but he said the museum was not funding ancient things as a priority. After 15 years as a member, we dropped since we have seen the same items over and over. Modern art is king.

 

Realistically a visitor to most exhibits can't see the coins clearly enough to know one coin from another and most would only read the descriptions on the card. The person who created the display is the only person who got a clear look at the coin. Let's say that he is conscientious and honest and makes the display as accurate as he can. Years later enters an unpaid intern with huge student loans. IF
he were to substitute a common coin that is the same size and vaguely resembles the coin in the exhibit how long would it be
before the theft was noticed and reported? How hard would it be to discover which of the hundreds of people who had access actually did it? The inclination would be to assume that a local criminal snuck in and committed the crime. Many priceless maps and illustrations have been purloined from rare books in libraries
over the years to the tune of millions of dollars in losses.

 

Anything can happen, but I don't think unpaid museum interns have such easy access to get inside museum cases to steal (or substitute) coins or other artifacts! (My son has been an intern, both paid and unpaid, at a number of museums.) Also, the most obviously valuable coins at ROM and other museums tend to be the gold coins. Not so easy to substitute a common coin that vaguely resembles a gold coin in an exhibit, given how well-preserved and easily discernible even ancient gold coins usually are.

That said, one of the more unusual things about the ROM that both of us noticed last weekend is that we didn't see a single guard anywhere, in any of the exhibit galleries. And, unlike, say, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, they don't have alarms ringing every time someone gets too close to the art. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that I saw a number of children touching objects and even rubbing their fingers on them. Example: a kid putting his hands on the lion panel from Babylon. I admit that I sort of yelled at him and his father -- who was doing nothing to stop him -- and pointed out the "do not touch" symbol right in front of them! The father said "OK, OK," and the two of them hurried away.