Pick, Eckhart (*1941)

by Andreas Kaiser

Eckhart Pick was born in Mainz on 8 February 1941. As a child, he was forced to witness the destruction of his parents’ house in the Große Bleiche in a bombing raid. After the war he attended the Rabanus Maurus Gymnasium college preparatory school from 1951 until his graduation there in 1960. Thereafter he studied philosophy and law at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, graduating in 1965 and 1968 with both state examinations in law. In 1969, Eckhart Pick obtained his doctorate in law with the topic “The efforts of the estates to achieve a permanent electoral capitulation and the result in 1711” and habilitated (after four years as an Assistant Professor) with the publication “Mainz Imperial State Law – Content and Method: a contribution to the ius publicum at the University of Mainz in the 18th century.” The two aforementioned titles of his doctorate and habilitation alone reveal the young lawyer’s passionate interest in history, legal history in particular. Another passion of Pick’s since his youth was fencing, which took him to numerous tournaments in Germany and abroad.

As often as possible, Eckhart Pick visited his French uncle Louis Pick, who practised as a dentist in Vienna, Istanbul and Marseille. Eckhart Pick usually received one or more historical coins from him … and thus the virus was planted!

Professionally, Prof. Pick was appointed to the faculty of the University of Hamburg in 1978, and then returned home to Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz in 1980. This was soon followed by a move into politics, which he had already helped shape to some extent as a member of the SPD (Social Democratic Party) beginning in 1963 and as a member of the Mainz City Council beginning in 1969. Prof. Pick was a member of the Rhineland- Palatinate state assembly from 1985 to 1987 and a member of the German Bundestag from 1987 to 2002. In what was probably the most exciting phase of German postwar history, he was able to help facilitate and determine the process of German reunification. The highlight of his political career was his term as Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister of Justice, Professor Dr Herta Däubler-Gmelin, from 1998 to 2002. In all of his activities and successes, Eckhart Pick was able to count on the strong support of his wife Antje, to whom he has been married since 1969. The Pick couple have two sons and four grandchildren.

As early as the end of the 1970s, Eckhart Pick – at the suggestion of the Mainz numismatist Henning Winzer – focussed on the coins and medals of the Archbishops and Electors of his home town. This was followed by many years systematically building up a special collection of Mainz coins and medals, based on the catalogue of the collection of the former Mayor of Mainz, Dr Rudolph Walther (1891-1973), which was auctioned off in 1971 by the company Dr Busso Peus Nachfolger in Frankfurt am Main. Prof. Pick was able to rely on the expert advice and assistance of the Frankfurt numismatist Dieter Raab (1938-2015) when acquiring the coins at national and international auctions. It should be mentioned here that the first coin auction in which Prof Pick personally participated was Künker Auction 22 on 18 March 1992 in Osnabrück (with an important Mainz collection). When his collection had finally exceeded 1000 pieces, Prof. Pick decided to sell it, not least with the motive of making his holdings of Mainz numismatic evidence accessible to numismatic and historical research and the general public through an auction catalogue.

In 2011, the company Dr Busso Peus Nachfolger published their auction catalogue 405, carefully compiled by Christian Stoess. It featured the collection of Prof. Dr Pick, which with its precise descriptions and historical background information is today – together with the catalogue of the Walther Collection – regarded as a standard reference work for Mainz numismatics. As there have been until now scholarly publications on certain categories of coins and medals from Mainz, but no summarising corpus or comprehensive coin history, Prof. Pick has devoted himself increasingly since his retirement in 2002, and also after the auction in 2011, to numismatic research in addition to his legal research activities, and has published the results.

Publications on Numismatics

Monographs

• Münzen, Mächte und Mäzene (“Coins, Powers and Patrons“), Mainz 2006
• Münzreiches Rheinland-Pfalz (Blätter zum Land 3/2012), (“Coin-rich Rhineland-Palatinate” in “Pages on the state” 3/2012) published by the Rhineland-Palatinate State Centre for Political Education
• Zwischen Gunst und Galgen, Münzmeister im Kurfürstentum Mainz (“Between Favour and the Gallows, Mint Masters in the Electorate of Mainz”) – in Contributions to the History of the City of Mainz, (ed. Wolfgang Dobras), Vol. 39, Mainz 2014
• Mainzer G/Gestalten die Welt (“Mainz G/Shape the World“), Oppenheim 2020
• Das Mainzer Medailleursquartett (“The Mainz Medallists Quartet”), Regenstauf 2022
• Die Sprache der Münzen (“The Language of Coins“), Regenstauf 2023 B.

Essays

• Die verfassungsrechtliche Stellung der Mainzer Kurfürsten im Spiegel der Münz- und Geldgeschichte (“The Constitutional Position of the Electors of Mainz as Reflected in the History of Coins and Money“) in: Recht und Wirtschaft in Geschichte und Gegenwart – Festschrift für Johannes Bärmann (“Law and Economics in History and the Present – Commemorative Publication for Johannes Bärmann“), Munich 1975, p. 151 et seq.
• Bemerkungen zur pfälzischen Münzprägung im Kurmainzer Amt Olm, dem heutigen Nieder-Olm (“Remarks on Palatinate Coinage in the Electoral Office of Olm, today’s Nieder-Olm“), in: Mainzer Zeitschrift Year 101 (2006), p. 183 et seq.
• Eine Rückkehr nach 350 Jahren. Zum Fund einer Goldmünze in Indien (“A return after 350 years. On the discovery of a gold coin in India”), in: Mainzer Zeitschrift Year 102 (2007), p. 175 et seq.
• Der Vogel mit der Lilie (“The Bird with the Lily“), in: Geldgeschichtliche Nachrichten (“News on Money History”), 44th Year 2009 (H. 241), p. 5 et seq.
• Die Münzprägung der schwedischen Besatzung von Mainz 1631 bis 1636 unter der Familie Ayrer (Ey/e/rer) und Benedikt Stephani (Steffen) (“The coinage of the Swedish occupation of Mainz 1631 to 1636 under the Ayrer family (Ey/e/rer) and Benedikt Stefani (Steffen)“), in: Geld und Wirtschaft im Südwesten – Festschrift zum hundertjährigen Bestehen der Numismatischen Gesellschaft Mainz-Wiesbaden von 1921 e. V., (“Money and Economics in the Southwest – Commemorative Publication on the 100th anniversary of the Numismatic Society of Mainz and Wiesbaden of 1921 e.V.“) (ed. Karl Ortseifen), Mainz 2021, pp. 239-257
• Pro und Contra in Sachen Medaille 1535 des Albrecht von Brandenburg (“Pros and cons in the matter of the 1535 medal of Albrecht of Brandenburg”), in: NNB 2/2022, pp. 63-66

After “his” auction in Frankfurt in 2011, Prof. Eckhart Pick experienced a phenomenon that applies to almost all coin collectors: One can’t really give up collecting coins – the attempt is usually unsuccessful. And so he simply started a new collection, focussing on the pieces that were not – or not in the desired quality – present in his “first” collection.

He himself describes it this way:

“When my collection of Mainz coins and medals was auctioned on 3 November 2011, I had no idea that a second episode would follow a good 13 years later. In the meantime, I endeavored to acquire further coins, usually those that were not represented in the first catalogue. My own numismatic works, which have been published for some time now, show an attempt to close some gaps in the history of coins and money of the Electorate of Mainz. Of course, they cannot replace the desideratum Corpus der Mainzer Münzen (“Corpus of Mainz Coins”). While the first part of my collection with the catalogue of its auction No. 405 of Dr Busso Peus Nachfolger was supervised by Dieter Raab and Christian Stoess, I have entrusted the second part, which is now available, to the auction house Fritz Rudolf Künker. Back in 2011, I had promised Dr Andreas Kaiser that he would take part if there should be a second auction. I am all the more happy to do this now, as I have since become friends with Dr Kaiser. The present catalogue is also enriched by the texts and pictures of the Nollé couple, which render it a concise history of the diocese. Thanks are also due to Manuela Weiß, who patiently incorporated corrections by Antje and Eckhart Pick.”

Auctions

• Collection Pick I – Dr. Busso Peus Nachfolger, Auction 405 (3rd November 2011)
• Collection Pick II – Künker, Auction 404 (19th March 2024)