PRINCETON, N.J. – Alan Stahl has a lot of change on his hands – and not the kind you can cash in at any bank.
The curator of Princeton University’s numismatic collection is in charge of protecting and displaying tens of thousands of coins, tokens, medals and pieces of paper money.
“The funny thing is, I’ve never owned a personal coin collection,” said Stahl, 60.

The 150-year-old collection started as an assemblage of plaster casts of ancient Greek and Roman coins. Stahl estimates it now contains about 80,000 items.

New acquisitions in the past year have made the collection even more diverse: a donation of 2,000 ancient Chinese coins and the purchase of more than 800 medieval Greek coins, bought for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

About a dozen university students each spend a few hours a week cataloging the coins. So far, the collection’s online system has more than 3,000 coins listed, about 1,000 coins entered in each year.

“At this rate, we’ll be done in 50 years,” Stahl said. For the students, cataloging the coins is an education in itself.

Read Full Story By CHRIS NEWMARKER in The Nashua Telegraph

The first issue of a book containing pictures of five thousand splendid coins belonging to Iran’s Sassanid period is soon to be published. More information will be posted as soon as we have a publication date and particulars.

Sassanid coins are decorated with original Persian patterns and minted in gold silver and copper. Golden Sassanid Drachma was used only in foreign trade, making them very rare today. Silver coins were used as the main currency and were circulated even in neighboring regions.

Iran’s national museum and the British museum are working together to compile a two-volume publication, focusing on pieces belonging to a period between the rein of Ardeshir I and Kavadh I.

The Sassanid era is considered to be one of the most important and influential historical periods in Iran, witnessing the highest achievements of Persian civilization. Many notable pieces of Pahlavi literature were written and Sassanid music reached its zenith. Many sports such as polo also emerged as pastimes for royalty in this period.

A recent acquisition by the University Library’s Department of Rare Books and Special Collections of more than 800 coins from medieval Greece will help researchers deepen their knowledge about a period of Middle Age history that has been little understood by scholars.

The Sarmas Collection of coins from medieval Greece is available to researchers on campus and around the world through the University Numismatic Collection. The new coin collection, assembled by London-based businessman Theo Sarmas, comprises coins minted in the eastern Mediterranean in the 13th and 14th centuries following the fall of Constantinople by armies of the Fourth Crusade.

“This makes Princeton an unrivaled resource for the study of a coinage about which there are many unanswered questions,” said Alan Stahl, curator of the University Numismatic Collection. “Until now there has been no specialized collection of the coins of the Greek lands of the later Middle Ages available for study to the public.” Read Full Story

John Graham Pollard, numismatist, museum curator and civic campaigner died on 17 December 2007.

Graham Pollard was the leading authority on Italian Renaissance medals in the post-war period. He will be best remembered as the author of the multi-volume catalogues of two of the greatest collections in the world, those of the Bargello Museum in Florence and the National Gallery of Art in Washington. But as a curator of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge – whose coin and medal collection he did much to enhance – his influence was far wider, as he shared his knowledge and judgement with students, scholars, collectors and dealers. Read Full Obituary