A 2016 exhibition on coins at the Grosvenor Museum in Chester, Minted: Making Money and Meaning, featured 12 photographs of people sporting hairstyles that mimicked those of the rulers depicted on money in the displays. Queen Victoria and the Roman emperor Diocletian were among those copied, as was the Anglo-Saxon ruler Aethelred.
“We plucked this poor young man from the streets of Chester where he was just relaxing with his friends,” says Liz Montgomery, the museum’s collections and interpretation officer, on how they found a suitable model for Aethelred’s complex plaited hairstyle.
Montgomery says the portraits – which were displayed on billboards around the city to promote the exhibition – were eye-catching and drew people to look at the collection. “It was the most popular part of the show and is something that everyone still remembers,” she says.
Numismatic collections, which are based around currency and can include medals, bank notes and related items as well as coins, are not an easy sell. In fact, both among the public and within museums, these objects are sometimes overlooked for being small and boring.
The Money and Medals Network (MMN), which is run by the British Museum, is doing everything in its power to change this perception. A conference by the group in March demonstrated how its work has helped spread numismatic knowledge, skills and enthusiasm across the UK, by supporting the growth of networks at local and national levels to counteract the hollowing out of expertise.
The MMN has made significant progress in enhancing the care and interpretation of, and engagement with, numismatic objects. But museum staff managing these collections need to use all their ingenuity and imagination to convince people, outside and inside their organisations, of their value.
The Grosvenor exhibition was the first in its 130-year history to focus exclusively on coins. Its aim, says Montgomery, was “to challenge people’s perceptions of money and encourage them to look at the change they were carrying in their pocket in a new way”.
The exhibition also offered interactive aspects, such as giving people the chance to design coins, carry out coin rubbings and dress up to create coin portraits. Montgomery says the result of the project was “increased engagement with our numismatic collection, greater knowledge about the collection, and increased skills and confidence among our staff”.
She confesses that she was slightly scared of the numismatic collection when she inherited the responsibility for it after joining the museum as an archaeology curator. But support from the MMN and Museum Development North West (MDNW) has helped the venue transform the way it works with the collection.
An on-site visit from the MMN in 2013 led to the cataloguing of the 10,000-strong collection, which includes objects dating from the iron age to the 20th century. Then in 2015, the Grosvenor took part in an MDNW project in which a specialist from the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge carried out individual reviews of five museums’ numismatic collections and created reports advising on their future uses.
The Grosvenor, supported by £2,200 in funding from MDNW, then applied these insights to the 2016 exhibition, a smaller version of which has been added to a permanent gallery.
Building expertise
Loss of expertise is a problem across the museum sector, but Henry Flynn, the project curator for the MMN, says numismatic collections are arguably most in need of a network like this, because the subject is seen as niche and specialist. “It is, but that doesn’t mean it should be inaccessible,” he says.
He sums up the network’s aim as “facilitating national and regional numismatic support in a climate of decreasing specialist curatorial expertise”. Its work includes challenging perceptions, inspiring museums to do more with their numismatic collections, promoting best practice in storage and collections management, and bolstering links between museums and the wider numismatic community.
The network has existed since 2008 and been supported by Arts Council England (ACE) since 2011 (it also receives funding from the British Museum and the Vivmar Foundation), but a recent three-year ACE grant, from 2015-18, has enabled it to think long term. “It was fantastic to be able to plan three years in advance,” says Flynn.
ACE has said that it will announce its future plans for funding subject specialist networks in the next few months.
An important part of the MMN’s work is mapping collections, which it does through questionnaires and site visits. In the past three years, Flynn has been to 59 collections, which means 158 have been visited since the network began.
The MMN also holds training events across the UK, either directly or in collaboration with its growing number of local sub-networks. There are six sub-networks, in the north-west, Yorkshire, the east of England, the West Midlands, the East Midlands and Northern Ireland. Even in areas where there is no sub-network, Flynn has been pleased to see the MMN’s activities spread in the past three years, to regions such as north-east England. Having mapped all the UK’s major numismatic collections and those in major built-up areas, the network is now increasing its work with smaller, less obvious venues.
“Practically all UK museums have a numismatic collection,” says Flynn. “If they don’t have ancient coins, they might have maritime medals – there is always something of interest.”
The diversity of the UK’s numismatic collections is illustrated by a current exhibition by the MMN at the British Museum (until 30 September), which displays objects loaned from six network members, including the Magic Circle Museum and the Science Museum, both in London, and the Armagh Robinson Library in Northern Ireland.
Finding value
Common challenges that museums with numismatic collections have to overcome include those related to appropriate storage and documentation. Issues can exist in established museums when specialist curators leave their posts, and in organisations with less professional curatorial expertise to draw on.
Leonora Baird-Smith is the head of museums at the Metropolitan Police. Having joined from the British Museum last year, she is the first museum professional to work with the police collection. “It has been important for me to professionalise practice like storage and auditing,” she says. “A lot of numismatic items were stored in desk drawers and carrier bags.”
Another challenge is communicating the potential of numismatic collections internally to colleagues. Matthew Ball, the research and documentation assistant in the department of coins and medals at the Fitzwilliam who has also worked as a numismatic consultant for MDNW, recommends thinking creatively about how to bring coins into existing projects – for example, by adding them to reminiscence boxes.
“In local museums, the way to get staff enthusiastic about numismatic collections is not so much by putting them in a case, but by saying ‘We’re a museum that relies heavily on engagement with the local community. How can we involve coins in what you’re doing?’” says Ball.
The support of the MMN is crucial in helping venues make the most of their objects. National Museums Northern Ireland (NMNI) has a significant numismatic collection, but has had no specialist curator since 2006. A collections survey in 2014, followed by a site visit in 2015, have helped it realise the potential of its assets.
Fiona Byrne, the museum’s curator of history, says it “tries very, very hard” to include numismatic material in all temporary exhibitions and it has managed this for every show except one for the past six years.
Byrne also sees the potential for numismatic objects to be used in other contexts. In a previous role leading tours, she used a coin issued by Henry VIII for Ireland – which is on display in a permanent gallery and was the first in Ireland to feature the country’s iconic harp image – to start conversations about political symbols. She believes this idea could be further applied in contexts, such as workshops with community groups.
Education is another area where numismatic collections can be used. The Museum on the Mound in Edinburgh, which is owned and run by Lloyds Banking Group, regularly receives visits from school groups – there were about 150 last year. Activities on offer include deciphering mystery objects, handling coins and attempting to crack the museum’s safe.
Susanna Hastilow, the education consultant at Museum on the Mound, says the venue was fortunate that these activities were in development at the same time as Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence (implemented in 2010), which recognises the importance of building financial capability in young people and encourages teachers to make connections across subject areas.
“There are many resources that can help support financial capability, but we were in a unique position to deliver something that made connections across the curriculum,” says Hastilow. Pupils’ numeracy can be developed by working out exchange rates and the relative value of coins, while comparing coins can encourage discussion of similarities and differences between societies. The imagery on currency can also be a rich source of historical information.
“For many pupils, handling a coin creates a tangible and thrilling direct link to people living in the past,” Hastilow adds.
Other subjects that numismatic collections can help address include ethics, through questions such as “Does money make you happy?”, and technology, by thinking about the security features on currency. This broad potential has contributed to an unexpected demand from schools.
“It appears that there is a huge appetite for collections-based financial education, far greater than we anticipated,” says Hastilow.
Harnessing enthusiasm and organisational skills to support a flourishing museum numismatic community in unpromising circumstances works well, but there is always more a network can do.
An expanded training programme, travelling exhibitions and securing more diverse funding streams were all highlighted by network members at the MMN’s recent conference as areas they would like to see a future focus on.
For Montgomery, it is essential to keep numismatic collections visible to maintain the positive momentum. “We need to keep putting collections on display and not let them go back into storage,” she says.
“With all the support that’s around at the moment, we should be encouraging people to show their collections, even if it’s a small display, and allowing people to enjoy them.”
Jonathan Knott is a freelance writer
“We plucked this poor young man from the streets of Chester where he was just relaxing with his friends,” says Liz Montgomery, the museum’s collections and interpretation officer, on how they found a suitable model for Aethelred’s complex plaited hairstyle.
Montgomery says the portraits – which were displayed on billboards around the city to promote the exhibition – were eye-catching and drew people to look at the collection. “It was the most popular part of the show and is something that everyone still remembers,” she says.
Numismatic collections, which are based around currency and can include medals, bank notes and related items as well as coins, are not an easy sell. In fact, both among the public and within museums, these objects are sometimes overlooked for being small and boring.
The Money and Medals Network (MMN), which is run by the British Museum, is doing everything in its power to change this perception. A conference by the group in March demonstrated how its work has helped spread numismatic knowledge, skills and enthusiasm across the UK, by supporting the growth of networks at local and national levels to counteract the hollowing out of expertise.
The MMN has made significant progress in enhancing the care and interpretation of, and engagement with, numismatic objects. But museum staff managing these collections need to use all their ingenuity and imagination to convince people, outside and inside their organisations, of their value.
The Grosvenor exhibition was the first in its 130-year history to focus exclusively on coins. Its aim, says Montgomery, was “to challenge people’s perceptions of money and encourage them to look at the change they were carrying in their pocket in a new way”.
The exhibition also offered interactive aspects, such as giving people the chance to design coins, carry out coin rubbings and dress up to create coin portraits. Montgomery says the result of the project was “increased engagement with our numismatic collection, greater knowledge about the collection, and increased skills and confidence among our staff”.
She confesses that she was slightly scared of the numismatic collection when she inherited the responsibility for it after joining the museum as an archaeology curator. But support from the MMN and Museum Development North West (MDNW) has helped the venue transform the way it works with the collection.
An on-site visit from the MMN in 2013 led to the cataloguing of the 10,000-strong collection, which includes objects dating from the iron age to the 20th century. Then in 2015, the Grosvenor took part in an MDNW project in which a specialist from the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge carried out individual reviews of five museums’ numismatic collections and created reports advising on their future uses.
The Grosvenor, supported by £2,200 in funding from MDNW, then applied these insights to the 2016 exhibition, a smaller version of which has been added to a permanent gallery.
Building expertise
Loss of expertise is a problem across the museum sector, but Henry Flynn, the project curator for the MMN, says numismatic collections are arguably most in need of a network like this, because the subject is seen as niche and specialist. “It is, but that doesn’t mean it should be inaccessible,” he says.
He sums up the network’s aim as “facilitating national and regional numismatic support in a climate of decreasing specialist curatorial expertise”. Its work includes challenging perceptions, inspiring museums to do more with their numismatic collections, promoting best practice in storage and collections management, and bolstering links between museums and the wider numismatic community.
The network has existed since 2008 and been supported by Arts Council England (ACE) since 2011 (it also receives funding from the British Museum and the Vivmar Foundation), but a recent three-year ACE grant, from 2015-18, has enabled it to think long term. “It was fantastic to be able to plan three years in advance,” says Flynn.
ACE has said that it will announce its future plans for funding subject specialist networks in the next few months.
An important part of the MMN’s work is mapping collections, which it does through questionnaires and site visits. In the past three years, Flynn has been to 59 collections, which means 158 have been visited since the network began.
The MMN also holds training events across the UK, either directly or in collaboration with its growing number of local sub-networks. There are six sub-networks, in the north-west, Yorkshire, the east of England, the West Midlands, the East Midlands and Northern Ireland. Even in areas where there is no sub-network, Flynn has been pleased to see the MMN’s activities spread in the past three years, to regions such as north-east England. Having mapped all the UK’s major numismatic collections and those in major built-up areas, the network is now increasing its work with smaller, less obvious venues.
“Practically all UK museums have a numismatic collection,” says Flynn. “If they don’t have ancient coins, they might have maritime medals – there is always something of interest.”
The diversity of the UK’s numismatic collections is illustrated by a current exhibition by the MMN at the British Museum (until 30 September), which displays objects loaned from six network members, including the Magic Circle Museum and the Science Museum, both in London, and the Armagh Robinson Library in Northern Ireland.
Finding value
Common challenges that museums with numismatic collections have to overcome include those related to appropriate storage and documentation. Issues can exist in established museums when specialist curators leave their posts, and in organisations with less professional curatorial expertise to draw on.
Leonora Baird-Smith is the head of museums at the Metropolitan Police. Having joined from the British Museum last year, she is the first museum professional to work with the police collection. “It has been important for me to professionalise practice like storage and auditing,” she says. “A lot of numismatic items were stored in desk drawers and carrier bags.”
Another challenge is communicating the potential of numismatic collections internally to colleagues. Matthew Ball, the research and documentation assistant in the department of coins and medals at the Fitzwilliam who has also worked as a numismatic consultant for MDNW, recommends thinking creatively about how to bring coins into existing projects – for example, by adding them to reminiscence boxes.
“In local museums, the way to get staff enthusiastic about numismatic collections is not so much by putting them in a case, but by saying ‘We’re a museum that relies heavily on engagement with the local community. How can we involve coins in what you’re doing?’” says Ball.
The support of the MMN is crucial in helping venues make the most of their objects. National Museums Northern Ireland (NMNI) has a significant numismatic collection, but has had no specialist curator since 2006. A collections survey in 2014, followed by a site visit in 2015, have helped it realise the potential of its assets.
Fiona Byrne, the museum’s curator of history, says it “tries very, very hard” to include numismatic material in all temporary exhibitions and it has managed this for every show except one for the past six years.
Byrne also sees the potential for numismatic objects to be used in other contexts. In a previous role leading tours, she used a coin issued by Henry VIII for Ireland – which is on display in a permanent gallery and was the first in Ireland to feature the country’s iconic harp image – to start conversations about political symbols. She believes this idea could be further applied in contexts, such as workshops with community groups.
Education is another area where numismatic collections can be used. The Museum on the Mound in Edinburgh, which is owned and run by Lloyds Banking Group, regularly receives visits from school groups – there were about 150 last year. Activities on offer include deciphering mystery objects, handling coins and attempting to crack the museum’s safe.
Susanna Hastilow, the education consultant at Museum on the Mound, says the venue was fortunate that these activities were in development at the same time as Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence (implemented in 2010), which recognises the importance of building financial capability in young people and encourages teachers to make connections across subject areas.
“There are many resources that can help support financial capability, but we were in a unique position to deliver something that made connections across the curriculum,” says Hastilow. Pupils’ numeracy can be developed by working out exchange rates and the relative value of coins, while comparing coins can encourage discussion of similarities and differences between societies. The imagery on currency can also be a rich source of historical information.
“For many pupils, handling a coin creates a tangible and thrilling direct link to people living in the past,” Hastilow adds.
Other subjects that numismatic collections can help address include ethics, through questions such as “Does money make you happy?”, and technology, by thinking about the security features on currency. This broad potential has contributed to an unexpected demand from schools.
“It appears that there is a huge appetite for collections-based financial education, far greater than we anticipated,” says Hastilow.
Harnessing enthusiasm and organisational skills to support a flourishing museum numismatic community in unpromising circumstances works well, but there is always more a network can do.
An expanded training programme, travelling exhibitions and securing more diverse funding streams were all highlighted by network members at the MMN’s recent conference as areas they would like to see a future focus on.
For Montgomery, it is essential to keep numismatic collections visible to maintain the positive momentum. “We need to keep putting collections on display and not let them go back into storage,” she says.
“With all the support that’s around at the moment, we should be encouraging people to show their collections, even if it’s a small display, and allowing people to enjoy them.”
Jonathan Knott is a freelance writer