British Museum Department of Coins and Medals facts for kids

The Fishpool Hoard of mediaeval coins, northern England, late 15th century AD

The British Museum Department of Coins and Medals is a department of the British Museum involving the collection, research and exhibition of numismatics, and comprising the largest library of numismatic artefacts in the United Kingdom, including almost one million coins, medals, tokens and other related objects. The collection spans the history of coinage from its origins in the 7th century BC to the present day, and is representative of both Eastern and Western numismatic traditions.

History

Frontage of the British Museum

Numismatics constituted an important part of the 1753 bequest of Sir Hans Sloane which formed the British Museum's original collection, comprising some 20,000 objects. The collection was incorporated into the Department of Antiquities in 1807, before the establishment of a separate Coins and Medals department in 1860-1.

As in other parts of the museum, the department has been able to expand its collection by purchase, donation and bequest. The department has benefited from the munificence of collectors such as Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode, Sarah Banks, Edward Hawkins, Sir Alexander Cunningham and George Bleazby. A significant strength of the collection are British coins from all ages, which have benefited from the ancient law of Treasure Trove. This has enabled the museum to purchase important hoards of gold and silver coins, many of which were buried during periods of crisis or upheaval. There are approximately 9,000 coins, medals and banknotes on display around the British Museum. More than half of these can be found in the Citi Money Gallery (Gallery 68), while the remainder form part of the permanent displays throughout the museum. Items from the full collection can be seen by the general public in the Study Room by appointment.

The department celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2011.

Research, publications and exhibitions

The Department has a strong research history, which underpins publications (see, for example, the British Museum Catalogues of Coins), exhibitions and other activities.

Publications associated with exhibitions

1881 A Guide to the English Medals Exhibited in the King’s Library, by Herbert A. Grueber
1881 A Guide to the Italian Medals Exhibited in the King’s Library, by C.E. Keary
1883 The British Museum [Martin] Luther Exhibition, 1883, in the Grenville Library, by George Bullen
1924 Guide to the exhibition of historical medals in the British Museum
1924 A guide to the exhibition of medals of the Renaissance in the British Museum, by G.F. Hill
1975 2000 years of coins and medals, by J.P.C. Kent
1979 Art of the Medal, by Mark Jones
1986 Money: from Cowrie shells to credit cards, by Joe Cribb
1987 Contemporary British Medals, by Mark Jones
1987 As good as gold: 300 years of British banknote design, by Virginia Hewitt and John Keyworth
1990 Fake? The art of deception, by Mark Jones
1992 FIDEM XXIII: In the Round: Contemporary Art Medals of the World, ed. Philip Attwood
1993 Silk Road coins: the Hirayama Collection. A loan exhibition at the British Museum, by Katsumi Tanabe
1993 The Hoxne Treasure: an illustrated handbook, by Roger Bland and Catherine Johns
1994 Beauty and the Banknote: images of women on paper money, by Virginia Hewitt
1995 The Banker’s Art, ed. Virginia Hewitt
1996 After Marathon: war, society and money in fifth century Greece, by Ute Wartenberg
1998 Humphrey Cole: Mint, measurement and maps in Elizabethan England, ed. Silke Ackernann
1998 Convict love tokens: the leaden hearts the convicts left behind, by Michele Field and Timothy Millet
1999 Magic coins of Java, Bali and the Malay Peninsula, thirteenth to twentieth centuries, by Joe Cribb
1999 Metal Mirror: Coin Photographs, by Stephen Sack
1999 Size immaterial: handheld sculpture of the 1990s, by Luke Syson
2000 Rebels, pretenders and imposters, by Clive Cheesman and Jonathan Williams
2003 Italian Medals c. 1520-1600 in British public collections, by Philip Attwood
2004 Badges, by Philip Attwood
2008 Chairman Mao badges: symbols and slogans of the Cultural Revolution, by Helen Wang
2009 Medals of dishonour, by Philip Attwood and Felicity Powell
2010 Money in Africa, ed. by Catherine Eagleton, Harcourt Fuller and John Perkins
2011 Eric Gill: Lust for Letter & Line, by Ruth Cribb and Joe Cribb
2013 Coins and the Bible, by Richard Abdy and Amelia Dowler
2014 Hard at Work: The Diary of Leonard Wyon 1853-1867, by Philip Attwood
2015 Hoards: Hidden History, by Eleanor Ghey
2016 Defacing the Past, by Dario Calomino

Other publications

1920 Grains and grammes. A table of equivalents for the use of numismatists, by G.F. Hill

Members of the Department

In addition to being numismatists, staff of the department have also been distinguished linguists, historians, archaeologists, art historians, classicists, medievalists, orientalists, and authors:

Keepers (Head) of the Department

William Vaux, from 1861
Reginald Stuart Poole, from 1870
Barclay Head, from 1893
George Hill, from 1912
John Allan, from 1931
Stanley Robinson, from 1949
John Walker, from 1952
G. Kenneth Jenkins, from 1965
Robert Carson, from 1977
John Kent, from 1983
Mark Jones, from 1990
Joe Cribb, from 2002

Staff

Derek Allen
Marion Archibald
Roger Bland
George C. Brooke
Ian Carradice
Taylor Combe
Elizabeth Errington
Percy Gardner
Andrew Gifford
Amanda Gregory
Edward Hawkins
Mary Hinton
Francis Keary
Kirstin Leighton-Boyce
Keith Lowe
Nicholas Lowick
David MacDowall
Joan Martin
Harold Mattingly
Elvina Noel
Laura Phillips
Stuart Lane Poole
Jane Portal
Martin Price
Edward Rapson
Richard Southgate
Helen Wang
Warwick Wroth

Gallery

Gold coin of Croesus, Lydian, modern Turkey, c. 550 BC
Knife money made from bronze, China, 4th-3rd centuries BC
Tetradrachm of Lysimachos with the head of Alexander, Greece, about 305-281BC
Tetradrachm issued by Ptolemy V, Greece, 204–181 BC
50 gold staters of Commius, Tincomarus and Eppillus, Alton, southern England, 1st century BC - 1st century AD
Roman coins of Nero and Caligula found at Pudukottai, India, 1st century AD
Coin of Trajan from Ahin Posh Buddhist monastery in Afghanistan, 2nd century AD
Gold coin from Bactria, Afghanistan, 4th century AD
Gold coin of Emperor Honorius from Hoxne Hoard, England, 4th-5th centuries AD
Gold coin of Kumaragupta I, Gupta Empire, India, 415–455 AD
Gold solidus of Wigmund, Archbishop of York, northern England, 837-854 AD
Nasr II, Nishapur coin, central Asia, 921-922 AD
Aethelred II gold mancus, England, 1003-1006 AD
Chinese Ming banknote for 1 guan, China, 1375 AD
Renaissance medal of Desiderius Erasmus, by Quentin Massijs, Holland, 16th century AD
Hoard comprising 78 Persian silver coins from Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, late 17th century AD
8 Reales silver coin minted in Potosí, Bolivia, 1770 AD