MONEY & MEDALS AUGUST 2013 ISSUE PUBLISHED

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V16 2013 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 16, Number 35, August 25, 2013, Article 23

Money & Medals is the numismatic publication associated with the Money and Medals Network based at the British Museum and in association with the RNS, BNS and a number of key partner museums. The Network aims to act as an information exchange for curators within the UK whose collections include coins, medals and other objects relating to monetary and economic history and numismatics.

The August 2013 issue of Money and Medals includes a review of the 2013 British Arts Medal Society (BAMS) conference and a report on the first training day organized by the Network. Curators from fifteen museums met at Manchester Museum on the 27 June 2013. The event comprised a series of seminars on important aspects of numismatics.

Rounding out the issue were short reports from attendees on numismatics at their home museums. Here's a report from Vicki Slade of the Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum, which highlights an interesting medal from their collection. -Editor

Numismatics at Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum
Vicki Slade, Senior Curatorial Officer,
Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum

Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum has a numismatics collections of just over 1,200 objects. The overwhelming majority are coins, although there are a small number of tokens and some examples of paper money from local banks. There is at least one item from each continent, although they originate predominantly from Britain and Europe. With a few exceptions, the coins were donated by just three collectors.

Notable amongst the collection is a token recording the distance of spa towns from London, which was produced to promote Leamington Spa. This is on permanent display, as is a local trade token and three coins from Ceylon. We also have an impressive cowrie shell disk, which is said to be the ‘price of a wife’.

We don’t have a specialist curator and items from the numismatic collection are usually only displayed to add context to social history exhibitions, rather than as objects in their own right. We decided to join the Money and Medals Network to get advice and support that would enable us to make better use of the collection. The meeting with Henry proved very productive in this regard: we came up with several ideas for displays and discussed ways to improve access. I’m now planning a display that traces the history of money from cowrie shells to plastic, and am managing a volunteer-run project to improve storage.

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