Archive: People and Markets

London Museum Receives Roman Artefacts and £20 Million

The London Museum receives generous support. Bloomberg Philanthropies is providing not only £20 million, but also more than 14,000 Roman artifacts that were unearthed prior to the construction of its London headquarters in the heart of the city – at the site where the Temple of Mithras once stood.

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George Frederick Kolbe.

George Kolbe Retires from Bookselling

After over 55 years in the numismatic bookseller business, George Kolbe decided to retire from the partnership of Kolbe & Fanning Numismatic Booksellers.

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Pobjoy’s 50 Pence Moon Coin

Pobjoy Mint has issued a 50 pence coin featuring the surface of the moon. The coin is available in two versions and comes with special permission granted by NASA.

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Lot #25968-87: Grabener MPU-156 HS Coining Press, 1991.

A Highly Unusual Auction: Assets From Pobjoy Mint for Sale

Following the end of Pobjoy Mint last year, an online auction will present over 200 lots with the mint’s equipment next week. The sale features coining presses, machine tools, fabrication machinery, print and packaging equipment and more.

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Archive: Coins, Medals and more

Napoleon III, painting by Alexandre Cabanel, around 1865. It was the favourite portrait of Empress Eugénie because it was the most accurate depiction of him.

French History in Coins – Part 3: A New Napoleon

Under Emperor Napoleon III, France experienced an economic upswing. The Paris cityscape was completely revamped, just as coin designs. The gold rush in the US thrust Europe’s silver money into a crisis. The answer came from France.
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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