I am very interested in Papal coinage, don't know anything about it though. Are these coins Vatican coinage? Italian coinage with Papal design? Special coinage minted by?? These are pretty cool and would make a interesting collection! Thanks Tony
Like any area of numismatics, Papal coinage requires a lot of study in order to obtain a fair amount of insight. I don't know much about it, but if I were interested, I would start reading. I suppose this link is a beginning... LINK
Again, start with Allen G. Berman. Papal Coins by Allen G. Berman. "Papal Coins is the first complete one volume catalogue of the circulating coinage of the Popes. Incorporating recent scholarship and discoveries, such as the Tiber Hoard, it spans over1,200 years of Papal coinage, both in Italy and at Avignon. Each listing is described, along with a complete transcription of legends found in their most complete forms. All entries are cross referenced to authoritative sources and collections, including the Vatican coin cabinet. Valuations are assigned to the over 3,500 known types, hundreds of which will be found illustrated in the extensive plates. ... 332 pages (255 pages text and illustrations, plus 77 pages of plates). About the Author Allen G. Berman is an internationally recognized expert on rare coins... His earlier works include Papal Coins, an international standard on the subject, and Papal Numismatic History. Berman is the editor of Coins of the Crusader States, the first comprehensive work of its kind in over a century. He collaborated on Medieval Coins in the Christian J. Thomsen Collection, a work prepared under the approval of the Danish National Museum. ... As an undergraduate he was given the opportunity to work directly with the American Numismatic Society's medieval collections, recataloging a portion of its holdings. At present he serves on the Society's Committee on medieval coins. He completed his master's thesis on medieval Papal coins in 1986. Berman has presented lectures to groups as diverse as the Cub Scouts and MENSA. In 1997 he was appointed an instrustor for the American Numismatic Association Summer Conference, creating a course on medieval coins ...Krause Publications, the world's largest publisher of world coin books and periodicals, has many times awarded him their Customer Service Award.
This is a bit off-topic, but speaking of The Catholic Encyclopedia, I do recognize it as an authorative and mostly unbiased source. However, I was greatly amused by the two totally different stories of The Spanish Armada as told by the Catholic Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia Britannica!
So, I arrived at the New York International Numismatic Convention 1999 right from the plane. I dropped my luggage in my room and went to the bourse floor. After a couple of hours, I was dragging. I got to Allen Berman's table and he said, "How about coins of the papacy?" and I said, "I am not much interested in San Marino." and I wish I could convey online the mixture of mild sarcasm and honest surprise when he informed me "The Holy See is located in the Vatican City." Imagine that, a Jew telling a Catholic where to find the Pope. I was disarmed, and clearly still find it funny.
Thanks Mike, Thanks for the info on Berman. Are you going to the NY show this coming Jan? I hope to make it, then again it's only 35 minutes for me to get there. Tony
That's a good way to describe the way I feel when I read some of your posts. Picture, if you will, a countryfied redneck, reading the thoughts of a sophisticated college profesor.
Hey, I don't mean to drift this thread, but you have no idea ... It is true that I have taught in college, but I have no degrees, so I am not a professor by any stretch. I live in Northern Michigan. It ain't De-troit City. Last year at this time, I was in a real estate licensing class and the instructor was painting a picture of a difficult selling situation. She said, "You want to show a $300,000 home and you look over the hill and there's a back yard full of rusted cars." I wanted to say, "Hey! That's my place!" I mean it is not. We don't have the rusted cars or dogs under the porch or anything, but there is no law of nature that says that people in rundown old shacks can't read books. It's mostly quiet out here except for the gunshots from the hunting club up the road. We have a lot of space. We have our own hill for sledding. The land behind us has never been cleared as far as I can tell. This is my wife's territory, actually. I grew up in Cleveland. My wife said something about her aunt and uncle being "farmers" and I said that they are not agriculturalists at all but only hunter-gathers with a permanent campsite. Is that redneck enough for you, cousin? I confess that I would rather log in and chat with you about coins than to go up the road to watch football with the real rednecks, but that's another matter entirely.
Watch football? I wouldn't know a football if one fell on me. LOL Have been known to shoot a deer, though. Been to MI quite few times, too. Southern part, though. Been to Cleveland a few times. Like to log on and talk coins. Say, maybe I understand you better than I thought, Cuz.
Definitely not! From 1985-1990, I taught several classes at Lansing Community College. I have an associate's degree only. When I was asked to teach technical report writing, I protested that I lack the requisite degrees. The department head replied, "We teach pipefitting here. No one has a Ph.D. in pipefitting." So, I taught technical writing, mostly, and also a term of algebra, and two terms of computer aided design. At Lansing Community College, most of the faculty were simply "instructors." However, on the DEC VAX, I set my username to DOCENT. I actually did more teaching in the private sector. At Kawasaki Robotics, I taught "Operations and Programming." Most of our clients were skilled trades, electricians, usually, from Ford Motor Company. I think that in two years, I had four weeks off from the classroom and I spent those writing manuals. At Carl Zeiss IMT, I taught "Metrology" mostly to skilled trades at General Motors. When I was at KRI, I took a class at LCC in "Factory Automation" just to learn more -- and I did, though not what I expected. I thought that as a trainer in automation, I would have an easy time with the final paper. IN fact, I discovered that the books on "education" in the library are in another place from the books on "training." Training deals with adults who need to know how to do things. It changed my view of the classroom. As a student pilot, I have had many opportunities to experience different kinds of training programs and styles. (See the articles on www.studentpilot.com) How adults learn is an interesting subject. As far as it applies to coins, I have used some of this in my Numismatic Theater presentations at ANA conventions. When I know that I am going to be videotaped for the library archives, I deliver a college-type lecture. However, without the camera there, I have opened up the floor and moderated a discussion. Adults come with a lifetime of experience and it is demeaning to you and to them to pretend that you are the Endowed Expert Dispensing Knowledge. A better approach is to bring to them information they want and to suggest applications for it. Unfortuately, we are all pretty much conditioned by the "public" school classroom and we tend to feel comfortable sitting in passive ranks and files. (By "public" I also mean the British system we would call "private" as well as the parochial models. All of them go back to the mediæval university where instructors were invested by the Highest Authority, since this is the "Papal Coins" topic.)
Wow sounds like you done a sweep across the whole board there Michael, and you're right about the teaching being different, i noticed that. Sometimes though when you have 'students' older than the teachers it can prove to have interesting results, the teachers sometimes feel a little under experienced. Sorry for going off topic further there. *PS I've still no idea why we call private schools, Public, Someone explained it to me once but it's been buried under alot of other stuff.
To bring this back on topic, there are a couple of ways to look at this. If it were I, I would match Popes to certain key events in Church history. The Great Schism, celibacy for priests, Henry II standing out in the snow barefoot, the Sistine Chapel, Galileo, dividing the world between Spain and Portugal, infallibility, and so on, would be the markers and I would find the coins that went with them. On the other hand, it is often recommended if you are interested in a series, while you are studying, reading, viewing, etc., you save your money and buy the rarest items you can afford as they become available. Rare items are hard to come by, by definition. Once you have the "keys" you can fill in the common material. Also, owning rarities is usually more satisfying than owning commons. In the history of the Church, there are more than a few short-term Popes with limited coinages. Then, there are Types and Varieties, of course, various commoratives, and so on.
Thanks Thanks Mike, i ahve been thinking for a few days now how one would go about building a Papal collection. i am going to pick up Berman's book maybe both of them. Those medals look very interesting too. Don't know how I will get started but I will keep what you said in mind. don't know enough about Catholic history to do the event thing but starting with the rarities makes sense to me instead of just accumulating a large group of all types. Regards Tony
Papal Coins I am looking for older papal coins. Around 1510 to 1534. Does anyone know where you can buy these coins. I have tried many of the online dealers and auction houses. I have been told it is more common to find these coins collected in Europe but that hasn't helped me. I have been touch with with Allen Berman but have had no luck yet. Any help would be much appriciated.
