Newman Money Museum in St. Louis

[Robert]

http://www.arch.wustl.edu/news_detail.lasso?id=95

Courtesy of Coin World (which didn't provide a link)...

Philantrhopist/collector Eric P. Newman donated $2 million to Washington Univ (St. Louis) to create a 3000 sq ft museum inside the Sam Fox Arts Center. The focus of the museum will likely be Colonial US coins/ paper money.

The museum should be complete by 2006.

To quote Newman via Coin World: "Every piece of money is at some level a work of art, a daily necessity, and aesthetic experience imbued with cultural, economic, poilitical and fiduciary significance. Money is and has been history that you hold in your hand, a welcome and widely circulaitng medium through which governments honor individuals, commemorate events and express patriotic and societal values. It is, in short, the place where visual art and design meets a wide variety of academic disciplines and this is a perfect fit for the new art museum..."

I bascially agree. Coins have intrinsic metallic value. Mankind's knowledge of geology/chemistry/metallurgy/manufacturing produce coins which are (ideally) designed by talented artists. Politics are encroaching ever more into the area of coin design, which used to be more "pure", that is to say artistic/allegorical. But that's the way things are today.

You can learn a lot by studying coins. It's a great hobby.

[coinnut4]

Hi Robert,
Interesting article.... If you think about money for a while as something other than a means of buying/and or selling goods...then you start to see exactly how much we owe to the simple coin.
Civilizations could hardly exist without them...their mere use alone as tokens of commerce promotes the freedom of trade and security of the transaction necessary for the building of a complex societal standard of living.
There is and always has been a social stigma associated with a large accumulation of wealth....indicating a position of power and high rankings among the community....and coins readily fit the bill even to this very day with that reguard.
Many of our modern inventions were a direct result of the versatility of the coin such as coin operated machines...the parking meter and the infamous slot machines of Vegas...
I guess we owe a lot to the simplicity of design and the compact yet powerful designs of the lowly and humble coins that have inspired humans throughout the ages....
Coinnut4