Archive: People and Markets

Maundy Money 2025: King Charles III Continues British Easter Tradition

King Charles III and Queen Camilla continued one of the oldest traditions of the British monarchy on Maundy Thursday 2025 in Durham Cathedral: the ceremonial distribution of the so-called Maundy Money.

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State Minister for Science and Art, Markus Blume (right), with the new Director of the Bavarian State Coin Collection, Dr. Martin Hirsch (left).

Martin Hirsch Becomes the New Director of the Bavarian State Coin Collection

Martin Hirsch has worked at the Bavarian State Coin Collection in Munich for years, and now he has been appointed Director. Dr. Hirsch has a lot planned for his new role.

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Brustplatte mit mythischem Wesen. Goldlegierung. Kolumbien, Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (Nahuange-Tradition). The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Schenkung von Alfred C. Glassell, Jr. Okarina in Form eines sitzenden Anführers mit herausgestreckter Zunge. Keramik. Kolumbien, Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (Tairona-Tradition). Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Muñoz Kramer Collection, Schenkung von Camilla Chandler Frost und Stephen und Claudia Muñoz-Kramer. Landschaftsbild: © Museum Associates/LACMA.

More than Gold – Splendour and Thought in Indigenous Colombia

A new exhibition at Zurich Museum Rietberg is dedicated to the diversity of artistic production in pre-Hispanic Colombia. On display are spectacular gold objects.

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Acquisition of a Highly Significant Ensemble for the Coin Cabinet in Vienna

The Kunsthistorisches Museum has acquired 22 coins of the imperial couple Regalianus and Dryantilla and made them digitally accessible. This is all the more impressive considering that only about 160 coins of this imperial couple are known worldwide. These are the only Roman coins that were minted in what is now Austria.

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Archive: Coins, Medals and more

The Wedding of a Century in Saxony

In the days of absolutism, a feast was not simply a gathering of friends and family. It was a political means of propagating one’s status. That is exactly what Augustus the Strong did in 1719. His son’s wedding was nothing but a welcome occasion.
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.
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