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Welcome! Welcome to the National Numismatic Collection (NNC) of the Smithsonian Institution, one of the largest numismatic collections in the world and the largest in North America. Located in the National Museum of American History, Behring Center, the NNC includes approximately 1.6 million objects. There are over 450,000 coins, medals and decorations and 1.1 million pieces of paper money (including the recently acquired “Confederate Treasury horde” of cancelled Confederate paper money) in the collection, highlighting the entire numismatic history of the world.
The collection emphasizes the development of money and medals in the
United States. The core of the U.S. collection, consisting of more
than
18,000 items, including coins of great rarity, came to the Smithsonian
in 1923 from the United States Mint. Among exceptional rarities in
this
section are the Brasher half doubloon, the 1849 double eagle (first
of the gold 20 dollar pieces), and two 1877 fifty dollar patterns. Another outstanding donation is the Willis H. duPont collection of more than 12,000 Russian coins in all metals, including platinum, from the Grand Duke Georgii Mikhailovich estate. The ancient Greek section has grown through many small donations, notably that of Capt. B. Bennett, to almost 19,000 coins. The recent donation of the "Demareteion" decadrachm of Syracuse and 4 related masterpieces of early Greek numismatic art by John Whitney Walter has tremendously enhanced the importance of the ancient Greek collection. Also of great importance is the large collection of paper money donated by Mortimer Neinken, and the group of checks with presidential signatures from the Chase Manhattan Bank collection.
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