The E-Sylum:  Volume 7, Number 44, October 31, 2004, Article 11

THE BODE MUSEUM NUMISMATIC DISPLAY

  Bill Bischoff writes: "People are best advised to go to the
  German site concerning the Bode exhibition, as given by
  Chris Hoelzle.  When I saw the figure of 500,000 coins on
  display in an earlier entry I knew that something was very
  wrong: even in its new headquarters, the ANS would have
  to take over a dozen blocks or more to exhibit half a
  million coins!  The correct figure, given on the German
  website, is ca. 2000  coins.  The rest of the text details the
  holdings of the collection (which, in toto, come to ca.
  500,000).  Anyway, who can absorb 2000 coins at one
  viewing, not to mention 25 times that many?
  Ars longa, vita brevis est."

  Alan V. Weinberg writes: "Regarding the segment on Berlin's
  Bode Museum exhibition of coins:

  In the summer of 1966 I toured Europe extensively and
  wound up in  communist East Berlin. I'd heard of a numismatic
  display at a museum there and went to see it - the name of the
  museum now escapes me. As I walked in, I was astonished
  to see displayed on a wall case a gold Joseph Manly 1790
  George Washington medal, an original (Born Virginia) Baker
  61. If they had that, what else in classic American coins &
  medals did they have?

  I wonder if the Bode Museum, Berlin having since been united,
  is that museum I visited?

  Also, the same summer at the Royal Museum in Copenhagen
  Denmark, I asked to see some of their American coins kept
  in the vaults. I examined a Gem Uncirculated Noe 1 Oak Tree
  shilling, a gem proof early Bust 1820's quarter, a choice Unc
  1795 flowing hair dollar,  and other superb early American
  coins that escape me now. The  tickets accompanying the
  coins all indicated acquisition in the very early 1800's."

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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