The year that is about to close marks two noteworthy and related centennials. In 1907, America’s greatest sculptor, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, died. Also in that year, the federal government issued the gold coins — in $10 and $20 denominations — that it had commissioned Saint-Gaudens to design.

Most people know of Saint-Gaudens for his large-scale public works that ennoble certain lucky American cities, including and especially New York. But as a fine exhibition mounted by the American Numismatic Society at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York attests, the master sculptor was equally adept on a scale as small as a coin.

…By this point, the visitor may wonder why the American Numismatic Society would mount their show in one of the hardest-to-enter buildings in New York. Once I’d been cleared, I saw why. The groin-vaulted galleries of York & Sawyer’s splendid building, marked off by wrought-iron fences by Samuel Yellin, America’s greatest artist in iron, may well be the most exhilarating exhibition spaces in the entire city. Read Full Story

Washington, DC — The most important public collection of Renaissance-era medals in the United States resides at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and is the focus of a new publication, Renaissance Medals.

The first comprehensive catalogue of this collection is available as a two-volume set covering 957 medals acquired through 2003. Of these, 163 are currently on view at the National Gallery of Art in the West Building ground floor sculpture galleries.

The catalogue, compiled over more than twenty years, offers the most detailed art historical and scientific assessment of the collection available to date, including technical information such as the alloy composition of each medal. Volume one features Italian medals, including dozens of masterworks by Pisanello, who essentially invented the medium of portrait medals. Volume two focuses on French, German, Netherlandish, and English medals, including works by Guillaume Dupré, Albrecht Dürer, and Jacques Jonghelinck, and continues through the Baroque and later periods. (more…)

The Museum of American Finance is currently preparing its new home in the former headquarters of the Bank of New York at 48 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan. The Museum will occupy 30,000 sq. ft. of space in the building, including the majestic grand mezzanine banking hall, which will be utilized as exhibition space, and two additional floors featuring a state-of-the-art financial education center, auditorium, and research facility.

The Museum plans to open on Wall Street in January 2008 (with administrative offices moving in the fall of 2007). In conjunction with the announcement of the move, was an official name change from the “Museum of American Financial History” to the “Museum of American Finance.”

The Museum’s exhibitions will use the collections to tell the stories of American finance and by doing so help inspire people to take control of their own financial lives. The permanent collection contains more than 10,000 documents and artifacts and is constantly growing.

The Museum holds one of the largest collections of 18th century financial documents as well as many of the papers relating to the Supreme Court Case Gibbons - v - Ogden, the decision which established free competition for interstate commerce. The Museum collects stock and bond certificates from the Gilded Age, including companies such as U.S. Steel, Standard Oil, and the New York Central Railroad.

Collection highlights include the oldest known photograph of Wall Street, a U.S. Treasury Bond issued to George Washington with the first known use of the dollar sign, a 1791 letter from Alexander Hamilton to the Bank of New York urging the bank to continue purchasing Treasury Bonds from the first bond issue, a stock ticker from 1867, a ticker tape from the morning of October 29, 1929, and the archives and order books from the American Bank Note Company.

Photos used with permission and courtesy of CoinWorks

The 1930 Proof Australian copper penny, the world’s “most valuable” copper coin, will appear alongside a range of Australia’s rare coins at the Dollars & Dumps Exhibition display Tuesday November 27th- Friday November 30th at a historic ANZ bank branch in Collins Street in Melbourne, Australia.

One of just six of its kind, the Proof 1930 Penny, was created as a work of art not intended as currency, exhibition coordinator Belinda Downie said.

“The original intention of striking a proof coin was to go in government vaults to preserve for history,” said Ms Downie, managing director of Melbourne-based coin dealer Coinworks.

“A lot of the mints would send their proof coins overseas, almost like a showpiece … not advertising as such, but to brag……For decades, Australia’s Proof 1930 Penny has always been the world’s most expensive copper coin.”

The private owner of the coin to be exhibited has been approached to sell, but declined, Ms Downie said. All six Proof 1930 Pennies that were created are worth between $1 million and $1.2 million.

One is held by the British Museum, a second by the Museum of Victoria, and a third by the Art Gallery of South Australia, according to the Coinworks website. The others are held by private collectors. (more…)