The American Numismatic Society (ANS) is a New York City-based organization dedicated to the study of coins, money, medals, tokens, and related objects. Founded in 1858, it is the only American museum devoted exclusively to their preservation and study. Its collection encompasses nearly one million items, including medals and paper money, as well as the world's most comprehensive library of numismatic literature. The current president of the society, Dr. Ute Wartenberg, served as the executive director for two decades and was succeeded in this role by Dr. Gilles Bransbourg.[3]
Medallion commemorating the Fiftieth Anniversary of the American Numismatic Society in 1908
The American Numismatic Society is an organization dedicated to the study of coins, currency, medals, tokens, and related objects from all cultures, past and present. The society's headquarters in New York City houses the foremost research collection and library specialized in numismatics in the United States. These resources are used to support research and education in numismatics for the benefit of academic specialists, serious collectors, professional numismatists, and the interested public.[4] It is one of a number of numismatic associations. The ANS is a constituent member of the American Council of Learned Societies, as well as other notable museum and culture umbrella organizations.[5]
Mission
The mission of the ANS is the creation and maintenance of the preeminent national institution advancing the study and public appreciation of coins, currency, medals, orders and decorations, and related objects of all cultures as historical and artistic documents and artifacts.[6]
Location
The society and its holdings have been housed in several locations in New York City. The first meetings of the society were hosted in private homes, including at the family home of ANS founding member, Augustus B. Sage in 1856. For the next several decades, the ANS and its collection were maintained in rented spaces at the Cooper Union, the Bible House at Astor Place, Union Dime Savings Bank, among other locations. With the largess of Archer Huntington, who became a member of the ANS in 1899 and its president in 1904, the society moved to Audubon Terrace on West 155th and Broadway, first hosted by the Hispanic Society and later in its on purpose-built space in 1907. In 2003, the society moved into the former Fidelity and Deposit Company building at the corner of Fulton and William Street. In 2008, the ANS moved to its current location is at 75 Varick Street by Canal Street in downtown Manhattan.[7][8]
Collection
The collection of coins, medals, and paper currency consists of over 800,000 objects drawn from all periods and cultures.[9] In many fields, the ANS collections are the most comprehensive anywhere in the world. The collection includes early numismatic items from Ancient Greece[10] and the Roman Republic,[11] and also has a strong representation of coins of American, European, East Asian, South Asian, and Islamic origin.[12] These coinages range from 700 BCE to the present. In addition, the collection contains paper and other non-coinage money, as well as medals and decorations dating back to as early as approximately 4000 BC. The curatorial department of the ANS preserves, studies, and documents the extensive collection. This work includes keeping the collection's database MANTIS up-to-date, which also involves adding images. This online database is a major asset to the study of numismatics because it is one of the largest of its kind and is accessible to everyone.
Online Resources
The ANS makes a significant amount of numismatic research and resources accessible online, from its own holdings and in collaboration with other institutions. In collaboration with the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, the ANS created OCRE, the "Online Coins of the Roman Empire." This project aspires to record every published type of Roman Imperial Coinage and link them with examples in major collections published online.[13] The ANS also participates in Nomisma.org, which "is a collaborative project to provide stable digital representations of numismatic concepts according to the principles of Linked Open Data.".[14] Similarly, the Hellenistic Royal Coinages project, HRC, is aiming to do something similar with all coinages from the empire of Alexander the Great and his various successor kingdoms, including the Seleucids in the Near East and the Ptolemies in Egypt.
Exhibitions
At its headquarters in Manhattan, the ANS has a small exhibition space, which is open to the public.[15] The ANS also loans objects from its collections to other major institutions and exhibitions.[16] While the largest number of objects from the ANS can be found at The Metropolitan Museum of Art,[17] there are exhibitions with ANS objects all over the world.
Library
The library of the ANS houses over 100,000 items and is one of the most comprehensive collections of numismatic literature, including books, periodicals, auction catalogs, manuscripts, photographs, and pamphlets.[18] A special part of the library is the Rare Books Room[19] with its unique collection of antique numismatic literature.
Publications
The ANS is also an active disseminator of research. As the largest non-profit numismatic publishing house in the world,[20] ANS issues books, periodicals, monographs, catalogs, conference papers, and conference proceedings in a variety of series and special issues.[21][22] Currently the ANS publishes three periodicals:[21] the annual American Journal of Numismatics (1866–1924 and 1989–present),[22][23] the triannual Colonial Newsletter (1960–present),[24] and the quarterly ANS Magazine (2001–present).[22][25] Electronic publications are the monthly "ANS eNews"[26] and the "Pocket Change" blog.[27] The ANS also publishes books on coins and medals.[21] Past publications have included the Numismatic Literature journal (1947–2007).[28]
Awards
The ANS gives multiple awards to people contributing to numismatics and the society.
The Huntington Medal Award is conferred annually in honor of Archer M. Huntington, who was an important contributor to the ANS at the beginning of the 20th century. This award recognizes outstanding career contributions to numismatic scholarship. The first such award was conferred to Edward T. Newell in 1918.[29]
The Saltus Medal Award is named after J. Sanford Saltus, who initiated this award in 1913. This award is given to sculptors “for distinguished achievement in the field of the art of the medal.” [29] Though this medal was at first only given to Americans, foreign artists have been eligible recipients of it since 1983. The 2011 award recipient was Portuguese artist João Duarte, and previous winners are on the List of Saltus Award winners.
Graduate Seminar
In 1952, the American Numismatic Society established the Eric P. Newman Graduate Seminar in Numismatics. This training program in numismatics takes place each summer, and many of its alumni are now in academic positions.[30]
History
The ANS was formed by a group of collectors in New York City in 1858, at a time when many learned societies were created. Although the initial meeting of the collectors occurred in March 1858, the society looks back to April 6, 1858, as its date of creation; that was the day on which the fledgling society's first constitution and bylaws were approved by the membership. That same month, the society accessioned its first coin. In 1865, it was incorporated as the American Numismatic and Archaeological Society or ANAS.[31] In 1907, the name was changed back to the original one.[32]
“The founders were Edward Groh, James Oliver, Dr. Isaac H. Gibbs, Henry Whitmore, James D. Foskett, Alfred Boughton, Ezra Hill, Augustus B. Sage, Asher D. Atkinson, M.D., John Cooper Vail, W. H. Morgan, Thomas Dunn English, M.D., LL.D., and Theophilus W. Lawrence. The corporators were Frank H. Norton, Isaac J. Greenwood, John Hannah, James Oliver, F. Augustus Wood, Frank Leathe, Edward Groh, Daniel Parish, Jr., and William Wood Seymour.”[33] Benson Lossing in the History of New York City Volume II wrote in 1884 that “the prime objects of the society are the cultivation of the science of numismatology, the promotion of the study of American archaeology, and the collection of coins and medals and specimens of archaic remains.”[33] Later, ANS changed its mission to focus primarily on all aspects of coins and medals.[34]
Under the leadership of several dynamic, resourceful, and generous presidents, the ANS grew to become a major international center for numismatic research. One of these presidents, Archer M. Huntington, a scion of the family who built the Southern Pacific Railroad and a serious collector, gave the society land at 155th Street and Broadway and contributed toward the construction of the neoclassical building which opened in 1908. In 1929, Huntington underwrote the expansion of the building, which doubled its size. As President of the ANS from 1916 to 1941, Edward T. Newell, a scholar of Greek coins, guided the society toward making its mark worldwide. He also left his enormous personal coin collection to society.[35]
It was in the latter half of the 20th century that the society evolved into the foremost numismatic research institution in the United States. Its cabinet of nearly one million objects ranks with the largest in the world and is an extraordinary resource for students of the humanities. Its unique library of over 100,000 items is the most comprehensive collection of numismatic literature in existence.[35]
The society's Eric P. Newman Graduate Seminar in Numismatics, established in 1952, continues today as a training program in the discipline and numbers among its alumni many scholars now in academic positions including several of the society's current curatorial staff.[30] The society administers a variety of fellowships and grants designed to promote research in numismatics and encourage the use of the collections.
Numismatics is the study or collection of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, medals and related objects.
Bernard Harold Ian Halley Stewart, Baron Stewartby, was a British Conservative Party politician and numismatist. He was the Member of Parliament for Hitchin from February 1974 to 1983, and for North Hertfordshire from 1983 to 1992. He sat in the House of Lords from 1992 to 2015.
The British Numismatic Society exists to promote the study and understanding of British numismatics. The Society was founded in 1903, focusing on all forms of coinage, tokens, banknotes and medals relating to the British Isles and former parts of the British Empire. The society promotes the understanding of numismatics through holding regular lectures and meetings as well as producing a number of publications. These include the British Numismatic Journal, the major journal for British numismatics.
Theodore Vern Buttrey Jr. was an American educator, classicist and numismatist. He is perhaps best known for his work discovering and exposing a scheme to distribute fake Western American gold bars.
Derek Fortrose Allen was Secretary of the British Academy from 1969 to 1973 and Treasurer of that organisation from 1973 until his death.
Joe Cribb is a numismatist, specialising in Asian coinages, and in particular on coins of the Kushan Empire. His catalogues of Chinese silver currency ingots, and of ritual coins of Southeast Asia were the first detailed works on these subjects in English. With David Jongeward he published a catalogue of Kushan, Kushano-Sasanian and Kidarite Hun coins in the American Numismatic Society New York in 2015. In 2021 he was appointed Adjunct Professor of Numismatics at Hebei Normal University, China.
Eric Pfeiffer Newman was an American numismatist. He wrote several "works about early American coins and paper money considered the standards on their subjects", as well as hundreds of articles. Newman sold his coins over auctions in 2013–2014 for over $70 million and used most of that money to fund the Newman Numismatic Education Society and its Newman Numismatic Portal to "make the literature and images of numismatics, particularly American numismatics, available to everyone on a free and forever basis."
Agnes Baldwin Brett was an American numismatist and archaeologist who worked as the Curator at the American Numismatic Society from 1910 to 1913. She was the first paid curator at the American Numismatic Society. She made important contributions to the study of ancient coinage, medals, and sculpture, whose work was used by later archaeologists. Brett was also a visiting lecturer of archaeology at Columbia University in 1936.
Michel Amandry is a French numismatist.
Sydney Philip Noe was an American numismatist, specializing in Greek coins, and was librarian, then curator, of the American Numismatic Society (ANS). He was awarded the ANS's Archer M. Huntington Medal (1938), and the Medal of the Royal Numismatic Society (1949).
A numismatist is a specialist, researcher, and/or well-informed collector of numismatics/coins. Numismatists can include collectors, specialist dealers, and scholar-researchers who use coins in object-based research. Although use of the term numismatics was first recorded in English in 1799, people had been collecting and studying coins long before then all over the world.
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Margaret E. Thompson was an American numismatist specializing in Greek coins. She was curator of the American Numismatic Society (ANS) from 1949 to 1979. She was awarded the Archer M. Huntington Medal of the American Numismatic Society in 1961 and the Medal of the Royal Numismatic Society of Great Britain in 1967.
David Michael Metcalf was a British academic and numismatist. He was the director of the Heberden Coin Room of the Ashmolean Museum, a fellow of Wolfson College and Professor of Numismatics at the University of Oxford. He held the degrees of MA, DPhil and DLitt from Oxford.
William E. Metcalf, FSA is an American numismatist, ancient historian, and former curator, who is an expert in the study of Roman coins. He is especially known for his pioneering work on Roman provincial coins and particularly the Roman cistophori of Asia Minor.
Martin Allen, FSA, is a British numismatist and historian, specialising in medieval English coinage. Allen is the Senior Assistant Keeper of Numismatics at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Ute WartenbergFSA is a German numismatist and the first woman president and executive director of the American Numismatic Society (ANS). Wartenberg serves as an adjunct professor of classics at Columbia University and as the curator of the Amastris Collection, a private collection of Greek coins.
Ulla Westermark was a Swedish numismatist, who was a specialist in Ancient Greek coinage. She was Director of the Stockholm Coin Cabinet from 1979 to 1983 and was recognised with awards for her contributions to numismatics from the Royal Numismatic Society, the American Numismatic Society, the International Monetary History Society and the Swedish Numismatic Society.
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References
↑ "History". American Numismatic Society. Archived from the original on April 19, 2021. Retrieved August 23, 2013.
↑ "Contact". American Numismatic Society. Archived from the original on April 19, 2021. Retrieved August 23, 2013.
↑ "Archived copy". www.numismatics.org. Archived from the original on May 17, 2008. Retrieved January 12, 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
↑ "Enews06-07". September 27, 2007. Archived from the original on September 27, 2007. Retrieved December 20, 2013.
1 2 Lossing, Benson J. History of New York City Volume II (New York: The Perine Engraving and Publishing Co., 1884), 598.
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