February 2021 eNews
Upcoming Events & Announcements
The ANS is seeking a Deputy Director
The American Numismatic Society is seeking a Deputy Director—a senior member of the management team who works with the Executive Director, ANS Board of Trustees, and Executive Committee. He/she will be responsible for supervising the ANS financial, administrative, technology, library, and publication matters, and representing the Society in the absence of the Executive Director. More…
March Money Talks: “Colonial American Paper Money of the ANS Collection”
Join Assistant Curator Jesse Kraft on March 27 for a look into the American colonial paper currency that resides in the ANS Collection. In a New World devoid of metallic currency, most colonies in the British American colonies had begun to issue paper currency within the first decades of the 18th century. Dr. Kraft will discuss counterfeit and altered notes, sheets and bundles of unissued currency, as well as lottery tickets, local money, and other non-conventional paper issues. More…
Introducing the ANS Lyceum
We are proud to announce the ANS Lyceum—a new online educational program offering interactive lectures with ANS curators who will introduce the numismatic objects, economic history, and cultures of people from around the world and from different periods of history. The inaugural six-week course will begin on March 31, and will be led by Chief Curator Peter van Alfen on Coins from the Archaic to Hellenistic periods. This course is already full, but a wait list is available to join. The second offering from ANS Lyceum will be on Roman coinage, taught by Assistant Curator Lucia Carbone and Executive Director Gilles Bransbourg, beginning late May 2021. Stay tuned! More…
Announcing a Virtual Conference on the R. B. Witschonke Collection
This three-day conference, co-sponsored by the ANS and the Ph.D. Program in History at the Graduate Center, CUNY, will take place on March 23 – 25, and will feature contributions by the foremost scholars in the field. The papers will offer a numismatic and historical overview of each region represented by the coins in the R. B. Witschonke Collection. More…
Peter van Alfen to speak virtually at the Art Institute of Chicago
ANS Chief Curator Peter van Alfen will virtually join Elizabeth Hahn Benge, collection manager of arts of Africa and arts of the ancient Mediterranean and Byzantium at the Art Institute of Chicago, to speak on ancient coins and the powers that minted them. More…
Library Duplicates on the eBay store
The sale of library duplicates through our eBay store has been a great success, raising much-needed funds for the ANS Library. This week we will begin offering duplicates from the David Bullowa Library, which covers virtually the entire world of numismatics through the mid-twentieth century. On Thursday, March 4, we will start by offering Akerman’s Tradesmen’s Tokens(1849), Prime’s Coins, Medals and Seals (1861), Leopold and Trübner’s Current Gold and Silver Coins (1863), Gilbert and Elder’s Cents of 1796 (1909), and Poole’s Catalogue of Masonic Medals (1939). All bidding starts at $1. Visit the ANS Ebay store.
SNG Netherlands Scheduled for Publication
As a part of the project Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum, with the aim of making Greek coins from various national and private collections accessible for further study, eight SNG Netherlands volumes are scheduled for publication over the next five years. These volumes will publish the entire collection of Greek coins, including the Roman Provincial coins of the Dutch National Numismatic Collection, which is managed by De Nederlandsche Bank. The first volumes are scheduled for publication in 2023 by Peeters of Leuven. More…
The Past Has a Future! Conference
2nd Conference of the Faculty of Archaeology Przeszłość ma przyszłość!/ The Past Has a Future!, will take place, in a hybrid format at the Faculty of Archaeology, University of Warsaw (Poland) and online on March 22–26, 2021. The conference will focus on imitations of Roman coins produced outside the Empire and how they display traits shared by communities living beyond the Roman Empire but also dissimilarities rooted in local traditions. More…
Numishare is now available in Urdu
Thanks to translations provided by Dr. Asma Ibrahim, curator at the State Bank of Pakistan Museum, the Numishare framework now has Urdu translations. This includes Online Coins of the Roman Empire, Coinage of the Roman Republic Online, and all of the NEH-funded Hellenistic Royal Coinages sub-projects. This is the first of numerous deliverables for the Oxford-ANS OXUS-INDUS project to publish Bactrian and Indo-Greek typologies through the Hellenistic Royal Coinages umbrella. One of the chief aims of the project is to enhance discoverability and accessibility of Central and South Asian cultural materials to the residents of those regions. More…
March Long Tables
Our outside curator next month will be Prof. Dr. Bernhard Weisser, Director of Berlin Coin Cabinet. From closer to home, ANS Trustee and chairperson of the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee Mary Lanninwill speak on the role of the CCAC; Saltus Award Winner Eugene Daub will discuss his medallic artistic process; and ANS Assistant Curator Lucia Carbone will give an overview of the Witshconke conference. Current active members will receive links to join the day of the event.
February in Review
February Money Talks: “The Question of Gold in Fourth-Century Egypt”
On February 27 Dr. Irene Soto Marín, Assistant Professor of Classical Studies and Assistant Curator of Numismatics at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology at the University of Michigan and ANS Summer Seminar alumni, presented on the gold solidus—one of the most iconic objects of Late Antiquity. A video will be available on the ANS YouTube channel soon.
New Videos on YouTube
Newly added to the ANS YouTube channel are: two new Money Talks lectures: “The Silver Coinage of Iran under its Early Muslim Governors, 651-705” by Michael Bates and “Dutch Medals of the Golden Age” by Stephen Scher and Arnold-Peter C. Weiss; a short biography on Anna Franziska Schwarzbach, winner of the 2020 J. Sanford Saltus Award; and The ANS: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow—a short film on the ANS by Pascal Perich.
February Long Tables
Nicholas Molinari discussed Acheloios and the Man-faced bull iconography; Taylor Hartley talked about the early artists of the Medallic Art Company; Lucia Carbonediscussed Cistophoric Mysteries from the ANS Vault; and Elizabeth Hahn Benge, Collection Manager, departments of the Arts of the Ancient Mediterranean and Byzantium & Arts of Africa at the Art Institute of Chicago, discussed their collection.
