Coin collection of the Leipzig University Library

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The coin collection of the Leipzig University Library is the numismatic collection of the Leipzig University Library that emerged from the Münzcabinet founded in 1718 . It is one of the most important collections of Saxon coins and medals and has an important position as a research collection in relation to medieval European coins. As a teaching and permanent collection, it contains a large number of coins from all continents and epochs.

Beginnings of the coin collection (1717–1851)

On the occasion of his 47th birthday, the Saxon Elector Friedrich August I of Saxony , known as August the Strong, received a congratulatory poem from the University of Leipzig . August again presented the university with a gold medal weighing 50 ducats - around 171 grams of fine gold - and a silver counterpart in the same format. The gold medal was sold by the university the following year "for the benefit of the library" for 133 thalers and 8 groschen , and the proceeds were invested to generate interest. In the following years the university used the interest income to buy books.

As early as 1718, the university had a further addition of coins, which this time was retained and formed the basis of the later coin cabinet . The student Christian Berns from Sorau gave his alma mater a deposit of medieval Meißer bracteates . In doing so, he determined the focus of the collection, which still exists today, and served as a model for numerous other donors. The coin collection of the Electoral Saxon court doctor Samuel Kretzschmann , which was left to the Münzcabinet in 1774, was considerably larger . It consisted of several thousand coins from antiquity, the Middle Ages and modern times and was kept in three cabinets in the coin collection. A fourth cabinet essentially contained Bern's coin treasure and a number of silver medals.

The coin collection received little attention for decades. It was not until 1833 that the holdings of the coin collection were secured by the Saxon court and judiciary Friedrich Albert von Langenn , the Roman coins were recorded and cataloged by Curt von Bose . The cataloging of the medieval and more recent items was done by Ernst Gotthelf Gersdorf , who had become the library's chief librarian that same year. The Saxon numismatist Carl Friedrich von Posern-Klett repeatedly resorted to the coin treasure donated in 1718 for his standard work "Saxons Coins in the Middle Ages", published in Leipzig in 1846.

In the first half of the 19th century, the coin collection recorded a number of smaller additions, among which the decayed coin and medal collection of the historian Friedrich Christian August Hasse, who died in 1848, stood out less because of its number than because of the rarity of its minting.

Further construction, use and loss of the coin collection (1852–1945)

At the beginning of 1852 the chief librarian Gersdorf also became curator of the coin collection. This marked the beginning of a phase of targeted expansion of the collection. In the same year Gersdorf was able to acquire the extensive collection of Posern-Klett, who died in 1849, for the coin collection. This most important collection of Saxon coins comprised 45,176 pieces, including 202 gold coins, 36,711 silver coins and 8,263 coins made of copper, bronze, leather and other materials.

In 1853, the higher-ranking royal ministry, which was responsible for providing the funds, refused to allow the coin collection to acquire the entire coin collection of the Leipzig City Library that was to be sold . However, the purchase of coins to the value of 495 thalers was permitted at the public auction of this coin cabinet.

A high point in August 1857 was the visit of King Johan of Saxony to Leipzig University, which lasted several days . He also visited the coin collection and a comprehensive report on the visit written by Friedrich Bülau contains a contemporary description of the coin cabinet and its history. At the end of 1857 the coin collection consisted of 51,093 coins and medals, without duplicates, most of them of Saxon origin. Of these, 225 were gold coins, 41,395 silver coins and 9,473 coins made of copper and other materials. Broken down by epoch, 4,016 coins came from antiquity, 16,170 from the Middle Ages and 31,909 from the 16th century or more recently.

When the size of the collection had reached around 60,000 pieces, Ernst Gotthelf Gersdorf began to compose an inventory catalog. This ultimately comprised 13 volumes and is still part of the collection today.

From the middle of the 19th century to the early 20th century, the collection increased in size through targeted purchases and other foundations. When the University of Leipzig celebrated its 500th anniversary in 1909, Friedrich Zarncke named 90,000 pieces in the catalog for the anniversary exhibition. At the beginning of the Second World War, the Münzkabinett contained almost 100,000 coins from all numismatic areas that were available for research and teaching.

During the Second World War it was decided to move the collection. This happened against the resistance of the director of the coin collection, Julius Benno Hilliger , who feared the loss of the collection in this case, or at least the destruction of its order. The site of the removal was the former mine shafts in the Schlossberg of Schloss Mutzschen , where the coin collection with other valuable items from the university library survived undamaged until the end of the war. It was not until after the Second World War that there were dramatic losses. Some of the gold coins fell victim to looting by Allied soldiers. Most of the remaining part of the collection was brought to Leningrad in the summer of 1945 .

Return and rebuilding of the collection since 1959

When it was transported to the Soviet Union, the coin collection in Leipzig was considered lost. But in 1958 a program was put together in Leningrad for the Berlin Münzkabinett with cultural assets from there. With this delivery, the holdings of the Leipzig coin collection also reached Berlin. The head of the Berlin Coin Cabinet, Arthur Suhle , informed the rector of Leipzig University, Georg Mayer , in a letter in February 1959 . The approximately 81,000 coins and medals in the inventory are classified according to metal, and a person would spend at least ten years with their order according to numismatic criteria. In his letter, Suhle also expressed his great interest in the medieval coins from the collection of Herr von Posern-Klett, which he urgently needed for his work on coins from the Hohenstaufen era. He asked for the creation of an assistant position for one of his students from Leipzig, who would do the processing of this part of the collection for him.

The University of Leipzig was only made into the "Karl Marx University" in 1953, which also meant an ideological obligation. Coins of feudal rulers did not fit into the political program and were subordinate to other issues. The hesitant reaction from Leipzig prompted Suhle, in turn, to downplay the value of the collection and to question whether the majority of the collection - all coins struck since the 16th century - would even be worth the use of personnel. Ultimately, the universities agreed that the collection would remain in Berlin, while the right of ownership remained with the Karl Marx University, which reserved the right to return it to Leipzig.

In the following years, the University of Leipzig began to create the conditions for the return of the coin collection. This was difficult because of the war damage to the library building and the lack of cupboards, and it dragged on until 1964. In April 1964 the collection was transported to Leipzig. In Berlin, however, 1,772 bracteates and 25 sealing coins remained for the time being for the determination, probably a concession to Suhle, who only came to Leipzig in 1967. The University of Leipzig assigned an employee to rebuild an orderly collection, but he lacked numismatic training.

In 1968 a cleaning worker found a single medieval penny in the dust in the basement corridor with the coin boxes, one of the boxes had easily accessible damage. This incident went through the institution after the discovery and led to a public prosecutor's investigation into the theft of public property . In an emergency, the functionaries had to be able to prove what they were doing, the University of Leipzig sent an "urgent" request to the Numismatics Group in Leipzig , the local association of private coin collectors, through the GDR Cultural Association . Voluntary assistance was requested from a number of knowledgeable members in order to organize the holdings that had been returned from the Soviet Union. The Numismatics Section was only able to recruit five interested parties from its ranks due to the lack of payment and its own doubts about its expertise, three of whom actually started work.

The coin collection was in a desolate state in terms of order. Inside the wooden boxes, the coins were kept in cardboard boxes of various sizes. Sometimes there were coins in paper bags with Russian lettering inside, and several similar coins were often kept in one bag. In other cardboard boxes there were numerous coins poured into them without sorting. The Russian coin determinations were often based on outdated literature or were incorrect for other reasons.

Over a period of ten years, the three collectors met on Wednesdays after work in a room in the library and sorted coins for two hours without making any noteworthy progress beyond their personal increase in knowledge. It was not until 1978 that the new curator of the coin collection was commissioned to purposefully bring the collection into order. Since that time, the necessary resources such as office supplies have been available in an appropriate amount. A first stage of the sorting work was the counting and rough pre-sorting of the coins and medals. This lasted a full year and resulted in a total of 82,838 coins and medals. Since 1978, the organization of the collection has continued to be carried out with volunteers, but more effectively. Until the collapse of the GDR, coins from their national territory had priority in determining them. This was due on the one hand to the available specialist literature, and on the other hand to the consideration that inquiries from scientists in the GDR would most likely concern these coins.

Due to the relocation of the coin collection during World War II and its transfer to Leningrad after the war, around 10,000 coins were lost. This particularly affected a large number of gold coins and medieval Meissen groschen from the 14th and 15th centuries. The second gap was closed in 1985 by purchasing Günther Röblitz's collection .

After German unification

In 1998, the coin collection moved from the previously provisionally used rooms to the new building, where, in addition to spacious furnishings, there are also newly acquired coin cabinets. In a very short time, the coins, which had been prepared for decades, could be arranged from the paper bags on coin trays, which guarantees a presentation that meets professional standards.

The exact determination of the coins and medals has been dragging on for half a century since 1968, with mostly voluntary work. In 2018, for the 300th anniversary of the Münzkabinett, only half of the coins were redefined and made available for research, teaching and public presentation.

Publication of the collection

The publication of the coin holdings is of great importance to the coin collection. The first attempts were made in the 1980s when Sabine Schultz was released from the Münzkabinett Berlin to work on Greek coins. Due to the lack of paper and printing capacity, the first volume of Autonomous Greek Coins was not published until 1993. The second volume, Römische Provinzialprägungen, Addenda and Corrigenda for the first volume , written by Ewald Hausmann , was only published in 2008. The publication project is supported by the German Research Foundation.

The publication of catalogs of the coins and medals of Saxony, especially those of the Middle Ages and the early modern period, is a further aim of the coin collection. In this context, two catalogs Meißner Bracteates and Groschen developed by Ewald Hausmann and Klaus Thieme have so far been published.

300 year anniversary

The Leipzig University Library sees 1718 as the year the coin collection was founded. Accordingly, the 300th anniversary was celebrated in 2018, from October 5, 2018 to January 1, 2019, an anniversary exhibition will take place in the rooms of the Bibliotheca Albertina , in which the history of the collection and other numismatic topics will be presented.

Significant parts of the collection

  • The extensive collection of Saxon medieval coins of the numismatist Carl Friedrich von Posern-Klett , who died in 1849 ;
  • the coin find from Paunsdorf , a hoard find from Paunsdorf bought in 1856 , which contains 1,018 whole and 639 halved bracteates ;
  • the collection of oriental coins of the orientalist and diplomat Otto Blau , who died in 1879 ;
  • an extensive collection of 218 medals by the Leipzig sculptor and medalist Bruno Eyermann , which was compiled by the Leipzig graphic artist and numismatist Klaus Thieme, who volunteered in the coin collection from 1968 to 2010. The holdings could be purchased from the estate with public funding and the help of several sponsors. The collection comprises around 80 percent of Eyermann's medals of above-average quality.

literature

  • The Münzcabinet In: Friedrich Bülau : Sr. Majesty of King Johann von Sachsen visits the University of Leipzig on August 4th, 5th and 6th, 1857. Along with a presentation of the institutions and collections of the university. Edited from official sources CL Hirschfeld, Leipzig 1858, pp. 99-103, digitized version at the Saxon State Library ;
  • Sabine Schultz : Autonomous Greek Coins. Sylloge nummorum Graecorum - Germany. Collection of the Leipzig University Library, Volume 1. Hirmer, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-7774-6000-1 ;
  • Ewald Hausmann : Roman provincial coins, addenda and corrigenda to the 1st volume. Sylloge nummorum Graecorum - Germany. Collection of the Leipzig University Library, Volume 2. Hirmer, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-7774-4285-3 ;
  • Ewald Hausmann: Coins of the Groschenzeit of the Margraviate of Meissen and the Electorate of Saxony. Inventory catalog of the coin collection of the Leipzig University Library. Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2011, ISBN 978-3-86583-610-6 , online PDF 107 MB ;
  • Klaus Thieme : Bracteates of the Margraviate of Meißen and their neighbors between Saale and Neisse. Inventory catalog of the coin collection of the Leipzig University Library. Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2011, ISBN 978-3-86583-484-3 , online PDF 8.4 MB ;
  • Christoph Mackert: There is enough money! Current development initiatives for the coin collection of the Leipzig University Library. In: BIS. The magazine of the libraries in Saxony, Volume 4, No. 4, December 2011, pp. 250–253, online PDF 8.6 MB ;
  • Klaus Thieme: What you inherit from your fathers. The re-opening of the coin cabinet of the Leipzig University Library. In: Thomas Fuchs, Christoph Mackert and Reinhold Scholl (eds.): The book in antiquity, the Middle Ages and modern times. Special collections of the Leipzig University Library. Harassowitz, Leipzig 2012, pp. 315–329, online PDF 4.8 MB ;
  • Christoph Mackert (ed.): MONEY CULTURAL HERITAGE. 300 years of coin collection at Leipzig University Library. Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2018, ISBN 978-3-96023-213-1 (exhibition catalog);

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Friedrich Bülau: Das Münzcabinet , pp. 99-100.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Thomas Uhlmann: Geldkulturerbe. 300 Years of the Coin Collection of the Leipzig University Library, Numismatisches Nachrichtenblatt October 2018, p. 396.
  3. ↑ Friedrich Bülau: Das Münzcabinet , pp. 100-101.
  4. ↑ a b c Friedrich Bülau: Das Münzcabinet , pp. 101-102.
  5. ↑ a b c Klaus Thieme: What you inherit from your fathers, p. 316.
  6. ^ Friedrich Bülau: Das Münzcabinet , p. 102.
  7. ↑ a b c Klaus Thieme: What you inherited from your fathers, pp. 317-319.
  8. ↑ a b c Klaus Thieme: What you inherit from your fathers, pp. 320–322.
  9. ↑ a b c Klaus Thieme: What you inherited from your fathers, pp. 323-324.
  10. ↑ a b Klaus Thieme: What you inherit from your fathers, p. 325.
  11. ↑ Archaeological sites in the Leipzig city area , landscapes in Germany online, accessed on October 23, 2018.
  12. ↑ Christoph Mackert: There is enough money, p. 352.
  13. ↑ Anonymous: Leipzig University Library receives Bruno Eyermann medals . In: Numismatisches Nachrichtenblatt 2018, Volume 67, p. 434.