Pocket Change Blog
Pocket Change is the official blog of the American Numismatic Society.
Heath’s microscope and one of his counterfeit detectors.
The ANS Library and Archives recently acquired an interesting little gadget—one of Laban Heath’s Improved Adjustable Compound Microscopes. Patented by Heath in 1877, he sold it primarily as a tool for examining bank notes—“enabling you beyond a doubt to form a correct judgement of the genuineness of the work.” Ideally, it would be used in conjunction with his Infallible Counterfeit Detector, just one of a number of similar print publications that proliferated in the nineteenth century, helping people determine the real value and authenticity of bank notes.
These publications—bank note reporters and counterfeit detectors—arose at a…
Everyone loves to find coins in unexpected places. There is always a certain thrill that comes from discovering those dropped…
Since repatriating the die shells of the Medallic Art Co. (MACO), organizing and cataloguing these pieces has become a curatorial…
One of the more fascinating aspects of the American Numismatic Society’s eBay store are the numismatic stories that come with…
Figure 1. Mashiko and the American Medalists in Paris exhibit.
One of the joys of living in New York City is…
by Alice Sharpless
This blog post is a preliminary version of an article to be submitted for peer review. Comments and…
by Liv M. Yarrow and Alice Sharpless
This post announces the third data release from the Roman Republican Die Project (RRDP)….
This essay is being written on December 31, 2021, to be posted on January 4, 2022. It seems like a…
December 28, 2021. I spend a lot of time thinking about the significance and intent behind certain images on ancient…
Charles Ira Bushnell
A couple of months ago, friend and fellow numismatic researcher Joel Orosz sent me a news clipping containing…
On April 9, 2021, Pocket Change hosted a post of mine that took issue with the popularization of a theory…
This past week, between December 1 and 5, the Third International Convention of Historians and Numismatists (Cartagena MMXXI) gathered in…