Pocket Change Blog
Pocket Change is the official blog of the American Numismatic Society.
Back in 2012 as the American Numismatic was preparing its “Signs of Inflation” exhibition, we came to realize that the copper metal value of still circulating pre-1982 pennies was close to three times their notional value. As a fun thing to do, I suggested my to older children, Jeanne and Felix, then 10 and 8 years old, that we start saving them. It became a family game, each time change was given back to one of us, the pennies’ minting date would be checked and the pre-1982 coins would be put aside in a box.
Over the next nine months, we gathered…
Historians of the United States have traditionally shown little curiosity about American money in anything more than an abstract sense. In a…
Self-Portrait (1887) Art Institute of Chicago
Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on this date in 1853 near Breda in the…
This is the first in a new monthly series of short films that will explore some of the more intriguing…
Last evening was the opening for a new exhibition called “When the Curtain Never Comes Down” at the American Folk…
With close to a million objects in the American Numismatic Society’s collections, the curatorial team occasionally comes across items that…
This post is part of an ongoing series that seeks to answer your questions about our collections. If there’s something you would…
Following on my post last week about the campaign to replace Andrew Jackson on the twenty-dollar bill, Gail Collins had a…
In case you missed it the first time around, here is a short film about the American Numismatic Society.
ANS.1980.67.17
Last week, I was quoted by the New Yorker in a piece on the campaign to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20…
Last week the ANS was visited by Hilary Becker, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics at the University…
The so-called Lesher Dollars were octagonal silver pieces minted by Joseph Lesher of Victor, Colorado, in 1900 and 1901 as…