Pocket Change Blog
Pocket Change is the official blog of the American Numismatic Society.
With close to a million objects in the American Numismatic Society’s collections, the curatorial team occasionally comes across items that are mysteries to us. This series will feature some of these objects in the hopes that the collective wisdom of our readers can help us to identify and learn more about them.
ANS, 1993.141.26
This rather strange looking metallic object is 28mm in diameter and is rather hefty for its size, weighing 20.7 grams. The obverse features a raised face that I think looks like a monkey. The face is in extreme relief raising 5 mm out from the 3 mm thick planchet. The reverse…
One of the volumes that the curatorial staff often consults is a folio-sized hardbound ledger that records the first half-century…
For the past month, Andrei Gandila, an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, has been…
ANS, 1983.156.7
The American Numismatic Society will be at this week’s World’s Fair of Money in Chicago. If you have an inquiry…
Joseph Cowell (1792-1863) was a British comedian and theatrical entrepreneur who performed on both sides of the Atlantic. His memoir, Thirty…
According to the Miniature Book Society, only volumes no larger than three inches in height, width, or thickness may properly be classified…
During the summer of 1758, British and colonial forces captured the fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island, which marked a…
***This is a follow-up to Summer Seminar scholar Lara Fabian’s earlier post about the fascinating history of coinage from the Caucasus in…
James McNeil WhistlerArrangement in Grey and Black, no. 1Oil on canvas, 1871Musée d’Orsay
Whistler’s Mother. There are few works like it,…
One of the most popular and complicated cultural forms that enlivened popular entertainment in the nineteenth-century United States was the…
Happy Bastille Day! The ANS was energized a week or so ago by the arrival of the Hermione, a replica of…
By Patricia Kim
During the late 2nd century BCE, the region of Commagene, located in south-central Anatolia, became an independent kingdom…