Archive: People and Markets

Metcalf Lecturer 2023/4: Benjamin Hellings

The Archaeological Institute of America named Benjamin Hellings this year’s Metcalf Lecturer. He is Curator of Numismatics at the Yale University Art Gallery and Chair of the AIA Numismatics Interest Group.

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2024 Huntington Award Presented to William E. Metcalf

At the 167th Annual Meeting of the American Numismatic Society, the Archer M. Huntington Award was presented to Dr. William E. Metcalf, honoring his tremendous contributions to Roman and Byzantine numismatics.

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“Volodymyr Zelensky” by Jim Licaretz.

2023 American Medal of the Year Award

In 2023, the American Medal of the Year award goes to a medallist who paid tribute to Ukraine and its president. Two other medals were chosen as finalists.

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Many researchers were interested in the topic of the workshop. Photo: Alaa Aldin Al Chomari.

Provenanced Coin Finds Versus Rarities – The Importance of Coin Finds for Historical Statistics

Reporting coin finds is essential for the study of coinage. A Workshop in Jordan discussed the importance of coin finds for historical statistics and the experience of a group of Syrian archaeologists who turned to one of the most important groups of coin finders: children.

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Archive: Coins, Medals and more

State-of-the-Art Minting Technology

Colours, special shapes, inlays, micro inscriptions, latent images and holograms – many technologies are used on commemorative coins today. In this article, we give you a little overview of the different technologies that are currently applied in the coin producing industry.
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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