Archive: People and Markets

Birthday Celebration: Employees of the Perth Mint toast to the 125th anniversary. Photo: The Perth Mint.

The Perth Mint Celebrates with Cake for 125th Birthday – and a Special Sovereign Coin

On June 20th, The Perth Mint celebrated the significant milestone of 125 years of operation as a gold refiner and producer of high-quality precious metal coins.

Read more

CoinsWeekly Special Issue for the Evento Numismático International Madrid 2025

On the occasion of the 2025 Evento Numismático International in Madrid, we are once again publishing one of our printed CoinsWeekly Special Issues, this time in Spanish. Read all about the Traveling Emperor Hadrian and his coinage.

Read more
The British Museum first opened its doors in 1759. Over 250 year later there are still hundreds of thousands of objects not properly documented. Image: Ham via Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0.

British Museum Sets Out Plans to Digitize Fully the Collection

After the disappearance of thousands of objects, the British Museum aims to document all of their over 2 million objects within the next five years and make them available online. Mark Jones on why he wants to increase access to the objects now.

Read more
Professor Rory Naismith holding a Byzantine silver coin in the Fitzwilliam Museum. Photo: Adam Page.

Where Did Silver Come from in Early Medieval Europe?

In the mid-7th century, a veritable silver coin boom set off in the North Sea Region. So far, the question of where the silver for the coins came from was up for speculation. A new study provides concrete results.

Read more

Archive: Coins, Medals and more

Siege plan of the city of Frankfurt based on the original by Conrad Faber von Creuznach, 1552.

Two Cityscapes on Coins From Frankfurt am Main and The Artwork That Inspired Them

Many engravers used contemporary media to make their work easier. Their coin designs were often based on well-known engravings. This is illustrated by two pieces from the Loos Collection, which will be auctioned by Künker in September 2023.
Karl Ludwig von Bruck, the mastermind behind the Vienna Coinage Treaty. We chose not to depict Emperor Franz Josef I at this point, who is shown on the coins, but the liberal politician Karl Ludwig von Bruck. Born into the family of a bookbinder in Elberfeld (now Wuppertal, Germany), he worked his way up from a merchant’s position to become Austria’s finance minister. He could almost be described as a beacon of hope for Austrian economic policy. It was tragic – and not just for him personally – that Franz Josef “ungraciously” dismissed him in April 1860 on false suspicions. The then 61-year-old took his own life. This deprived Austria of an imaginative politician who might have prevented its economic marginalization by Prussia.

A War Fought with Unusual Weapons: How Prussia Used Finance and Politics to Force the Habsburg Hereditary Lands Out of the German Confederation

On 26 March 2024, the Künker auction house will offer the Tursky Collection with coins of Emperor Franz Joseph I. We use specimens from this collection to tell the story of how Prussia used its economic sway to become the sole hegemonic power in Germany.
Search Search