What makes a coin legendary, rare or beautiful?
Numismatic Guaranty Corporation and Numismatic Conservation Services are the presenting sponsors of the Smithsonian exhibit, Legendary Coins and Currency. We are proud to be part of the unprecedented opportunity to unlock the educational value of and create awareness for these important historical treasures.
Located in the National Museum of American History, the National Numismatics Collection (NNC) includes approximately 1.6 million objects, including over 450,000 coins, medals, and decorations and 1.1 million pieces of paper money. It embraces the entire numismatic history of the world.
Take a behind the scenes look at this renowned Smithsonian exhibition through our online gallery.
Exhibition Highlights:
1913 Liberty Head nickel, the most celebrated 20th-century coin
1907 Saint-Gaudens Ultra High Relief Double Eagle, often considered America’s most beautiful coin
1849 twenty dollar Double Eagle, created from the American gold rush
All
photos by Tom Mulvaney for the Smithsonian Institution. copyright 2005,
Smithsonian
Institution. Visit
americanhistory.si.edu/coins for more information about this new exhibition
and the National Numismatic Collection.
The coining of a silver crown, as dollar-sized coins of the world are known to numismatists, was for centuries a distinguishing mark of national sovereignty.
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America’s largest circulating gold coin was the Double Eagle or $20 piece, born in the exciting years of the great California Gold Rush.
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The general lack of coined money in America, combined with the infant nation’s precarious financial situation, meant that most transactions were carried out with paper currency.
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The first regular coins struck by the federal government of the United States on its own machinery and within its own premises were the 36,103 Chain cents struck in the first twelve days of March of 1793.
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Very soon after the initial reports that gold had been found at Sutter’s Fort in January 1848, California’s military governor dispatched a party to investigate.
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