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.

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