Washington University's Olin Library opened seven numismatic displays until July 7, 2024. Recent exhibits in the library address play money history, World War II internment camp difficulties, and other topics. The library manages the Newman Numismatic Portal in addition to displays.
Freedom Will Be Ours: Medals and Money in Black America displays coins, medals, and tokens with diverse Black histories. This group's highlight is a Charleston Freedman Badge, issued by Charleston, S.C., to free people of color between 1783 and 1789 and loaned by John Kraljevich. A Charleston detectorist found this piece, one of 10.
J. S. G. Boggs and the Meaning of Money, loaned by Wayne Homren, examines the performance artist who swapped U.S. cash for goods and services. Boggs asked the community, including law enforcement, philosophical questions regarding fiat money. On April 3, 2024, at 5 P.M., Wayne Homren will lecture on J. S. G. Boggs' life and work at Olin Library, room 142. This presentation is public.
The American Numismatic Association (ANA) in Colorado Springs, Colo., has a collection of Washington medals and tokens, mostly donated by Dwight Manley and previously from William S. Baker's Medallic Portraits of Washington (1885), the first major work on Washington-themed medals. This group considers Washington through his military and political careers and cultural role in America. Stuart and Maureen Levine loaned the Continental Congress' first medal, the Washington Before Boston, for this show.
In 1928, Washington University received the John Max Wulfing Collection of ancient Greek and Roman coins, which drew numismatists worldwide. As Wulfing Collection Curator, William Bubelis, Associate Professor of Classics, has chosen works that trace the history of currency from Lydia, c. 560-546 BCE, to Constantine I.
The Medals of American Independence display complements Olin Library's Rhode Island Southwick Broadside and Massachusetts Rogers Broadside Declaration of Independence. In this display, the Resolute Americana Collection loaned the Charles Cushing Wright Declaration medals, one of the best American engravings. Benjamin Franklin's Libertas Americana medal and his printed Explication, likely the sole copy in private hands, are also on display.
On display are books and coins from the numismatic career of St. Louis attorney, philanthropist, and collector Eric P. Newman (1906-2017, Washington University School of Law, ‘35). This exhibit is lent by Grand Valley State University Distinguished Professor of Philanthropic Studies Emeritus Joel J. Orosz and Washington University Board of Trustees member Henry Warshaw.
A copy of Matthias Sprengel's 1783 Historisch-genealogischer Calender, loaned by Stuart and Maureen Levine, contains the first illustration of the Continental Currency coin, a subject first explored by Eric P. Newman in 1952, and the Libertas Americana medal.
Finally, Digitization in Numismatics examines the Newman Numismatic Portal's media-processing operations. Olin Library's Department of Special Collections, Preservation, and Digital Strategies manages the Newman Portal, which debuted in December 2014 and has 66,000 documents with over five million pages of numismatic information.
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