What did they collect way back when?

What did they collect way back then? in the 1800's? did people even collect coins, or only ancients? did anyone even collect them?

 

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Great info, didn't know it started that early.

 

Have you seen a copy of this book? I imagine such a book now resides in a museum, private or rare books collection. Do you remember the title or is there anything written about it online that references it? Sounds very interesting. If the book had images of coins in reference they would have had to be engraved illustrations representing coin designs. I wonder how closely they were able to depict the coins if they were concerned in their day with quality and features of the coins themselves.

 

I bet it was pricey indeed! Thanks.

 

His knowledge of metallurgy leading to making metal type fonts came from working with his parents who were goldsmiths and made coins. The Bible was his 2nd book and the coin book was his third as I remember from a biography excerpt.

Jim

 

I have seen the Gutenberg Bible on view at Yale's Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. I highly suggest a visit to this collection and to see the building's architecture. It's a fascinating place. Digital image collection is available online at the second link.

 

I can not find any book on coins printed by Gutenberg.

 

Nor have I. I didn't think Doug meant Gutenberg printed a coin book in the earlier post. (Maybe he did, I could be wrong.) I wasn't sure about Jim's reference in full but the family were indeed goldsmiths who worked for and supplied gold to the churches mint. Gutenberg also printed a lot of other smaller things while working on the bible and other known projects so maybe there are books with specimens of coins attributed to him from that era/region. I'd like to know more if someone can provide any more information.

 

GDJMSP does not want you to know he has that book. The main reason is not the value, it's the fact that he was standing there while it was being printed and got the first one.
Note how he also is aware of how long coins have been being collected. Again, he was there.

 

Rulers and their families have indeed collected coins since coins have been around. But here in Europe, coin collecting among non-royals became popular at the time of the Renaissance - still limited to those who could afford it, of course. Francesco Petrarca who lived in the 14c was a well known coin collector, mostly due to his interest in ancient Roman history.

When humanist Hubert Goltzius, one of the first "scientific" numismatists, traveled in Western Europe in the mid-16th century, he learned about almost 1,000 coin cabinets in that area, with 200 in the German countries alone. And in 1729 Johann D. Köhler published the first issue of his "Münzbelustigungen", a weekly (!) coin journal. The last issue came out in 1750, five years before he died.

Christian

 

I know That John Adams the second president of the US, collected roman & greek coins. Traci

 

Coin collecting in the US was a little different in the 1800s than today. Before 1893 coins were collected by date or type. After an article was published in 1893 about mintmarks collectors became aware of mintmarks on coins and the low mintages of certain dates and mintmarks.

 

He was the first to say that too, before old Walter . . .

And you were there!

And he probably printed the first one, that's why he was there. :hammer:

Ribbit

Ps: Here's a book on a collection that existed in 1901:

http://www.ebookee.com.cn/Catalogue-of-the-valuable-collection-of-coins-and-medals-_250907.html

It's English coins & medals but it's a good read anyways.

 

Very interesting read and information. Is there really a good book on the history of coinage in the world? In the US? Got to start thinking about a Christmas present for the wife.

 

She ought to enjoy this:

http://www.ebookee.com.cn/Arabic-Coins-and-how-to-Read-Them_311779.html

Ribbit

Ps: You can read this while she's reading her's:

http://www.ebookee.com.cn/Ancient-History-from-Coins_215206.html

 

http://www.ebookee.com.cn/Arabic-Coins-and-how-to-Read-Them_311779.html


Then again it depends on what one defines as malware.

 

Okay, I can see this is going to be a Merry Christmas at my house following the advice I'm getting here.

 

Plus ca change, plus c'est le meme chose.

Whitman just came out with a new book on Colonial coins that is destined to be the new standard. Before this, the standard was The Early Coins of America by Sylvester S. Crosby, published in 1875 and reprinted often. (Mine is from Quaterman 1983.)

In the 1840s, gentlemen in Boston discovered how cheap Large Cents and Half Cents were to collect.

During the 1790s, when merchant tokens circulated widely in England, one of the issuers and cataloguers was a draper named James Conder. From his catalog, we in America still call them "Conder tokens."

This is outside my areas, but for US Large Cents, the standard works have all been modernized. Still, among them known to true collectors is one originally printed on hand-engraved copper plates. It has been reprinted and republished often.

One of the reasons that there are three kinds of 1804 Dollars is that collectors in the 1850s heard that such things existed, and had the Mint make them more.

Spink the UK coin dealer sets 1770-1772 as the origin of its numismatic trade, apart from money-lending and money-changing. Seaby (now bought by Spink) also dates to about the same time.