Any collectors here that intend on donating coins to any museums?

TheGoonies1985

I was wondering that for a while now. Do any of you intend on donating coins say to The Mexican currency museum or any other institutions once you are at a certain age or maybe once you pass away?

Nap

Doubt it.

Not because I don't love museums.

Most museums won't really want my coins. They generally are not interested in ancient or medieval coins that are metal detecting finds, even with appropriate paperwork. Nor are my coins likely to be of significant interest locally. Or worthy of display.

I think if you really appreciate a museum's mission and want to make them part of your estate planning, give them cash. Museums can usually accomplish more with funding than with object donation. Museum deaccessioning to raise money is challenging and sometimes more trouble than it's worth.

TheGoonies1985

@Nap said:
Doubt it.

Not because I don't love museums.

Most museums won't really want my coins. They generally are not interested in ancient or medieval coins that are metal detecting finds, even with appropriate paperwork. Nor are my coins likely to be of significant interest locally. Or worthy of display.

I think if you really appreciate a museum's mission and want to make them part of your estate planning, give them cash. Museums can usually accomplish more with funding than with object donation. Museum deaccessioning to raise money is challenging and sometimes more trouble than it's worth.

I doubt I will have much in terms of coins that museums would want (maybe some rare coins but not expensive coins that is for certain) but I know some have some really nice collections here. Hence my question.

Sapyx

Donating collections to museums can work, but it usually needs you, or a surviving loved one, to both make a cash donation to house the collection properly, and to push them to actually build and maintain that housing.

An example of a donated collection, done well: the Paul Simon collection of Australian and world gold coins. After he died in 1974, his widow, with the help of his friends at his coin club, donated them to Sovereign Hill, a historic gold-mining site and "re-enactment centre" where tourists go to experience the gold-rush days; the donation was made on condition that Sovereign Hill would build a Gold Museum to house and display the collection in, and included a cash foundation to help fund this. After being open to the public for many years, this museum has now been renamed the Australian Centre for Gold Rush Collections and is now expanding, having received numerous other donations and bequests from collectors who have seen the good work they are doing there.

Many collectors, however, have become disillusioned with the whole museum-donation concept, as many museums do not show or give priority to coin collections in their possession, and museums in recent decades tend to be run by people of a cultural protectionist mindset, who view coin collectors as The Enemy, as part of the problem for which museums are the solution.

TheGoonies1985

@Sapyx said:
Donating collections to museums can work, but it usually needs you, or a surviving loved one, to both make a cash donation to house the collection properly, and to push them to actually build and maintain that housing.

An example of a donated collection, done well: the Paul Simon collection of Australian and world gold coins. After he died in 1974, his widow, with the help of his friends at his coin club, donated them to Sovereign Hill, a historic gold-mining site and "re-enactment centre" where tourists go to experience the gold-rush days; the donation was made on condition that Sovereign Hill would build a Gold Museum to house and display the collection in, and included a cash foundation to help fund this. After being open to the public for many years, this museum has now been renamed the Australian Centre for Gold Rush Collections and is now expanding, having received numerous other donations and bequests from collectors who have seen the good work they are doing there.

Many collectors, however, have become disillusioned with the whole museum-donation concept, as many museums do not show or give priority to coin collections in their possession, and museums in recent decades tend to be run by people of a cultural protectionist mindset, who view coin collectors as The Enemy, as part of the problem for which museums are the solution.

I prefer as a collector if coins stay in the realm of collectors versus museums. I would hate to see a lot of coins end up no longer available to us collectors.

jgenn

Donated collections will occasionally get deaccessioned like the Huntington collection.

TwoKopeiki

My collection is going to be passed onto my kids, but only when they are able to answer a set of numismatic riddles that point to various quest items that, when assembled together, will provide a map to the location of the will addendum declaring the bearer the rightful owner of the collection. If my kids can't figure out - maybe their kids will...

1984worldcoins

The coins will survive us, in one way or another, that is for sure. If the kids will sell, the coins will get to other collectors, if they will keep, even better. And so on, for centuries. Gold is tricky, gets melted from time to time.

WillieBoyd2

A local museum has a few coins on display:

Old pots and old coins

Old coins (not identified)

The upper left coin is a Roman coin of Antoninus Pius (AD 138-161)

1984worldcoins

what a weird way to display ancient coins, sideways and unidentified

desslok

Let me tell you two anecdotes about museums.

1. The most important collection of modern Israel's numismatics (coins, currency and medals) ever assembled, the Kagan Maremba collection, was donated to the Jewish Museum in New York circa 2012. The Museum promptly turned around and sold the entire collection, lock stock and barrel, as a single lot in a Sotheby's Judaica auction (not really a numismatic auction), without bothering to fully catalog the items, research them, list them or present them in any meaningful way. A few small pictures shot from far away and a short verbal description were all that was given. Granted, the lot realized US $572,500, but who knows what it would have fetched if properly marketed. The 100 Pound British Mandate banknote alone is worth $200,000.

https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2012/judaica-n08922/lot.172.html

3. In 2003, the Birmingham Mint went into liquidation and donated its huge archive of samples and specimens from over 200 years of operation to the Birmingham Museum of Fine Arts. This Museum had no numismatic display and had no intention of ever starting one. They held onto the collection for years, possibly trickling a few coins here and there to coin dealers (several unique coins appeared on the market around that time), before ultimately contracting a local dealer, Format Coins, with the task of liquidating the collection. Format coins later joined forces with a U.S. coin dealer who submitted the coins to PCGS with proof that they belonged to the Mint, and PCGS labeled them "Ex Kings Norton Mint Collection". Ever since then they have been gradually appearing on eBay and various auction houses, as tiers of dealers acquired them from the source and from one another and slowly dispersing them.

Disclaimer: I do not own the coins pictured below

291fifth

Museums and coins are a poor mix. The donated coins usually end up in storage for decades.

pruebas

I typed the below last night, but wanted to sleep on it before posting. It seems you guys are mostly all of the same opinion as me.

While parts of my collection may be museum-worthy, I doubt I will donate anything significant. Not because I need the money, but because most museums do not display or research their collections.

I like to use the Huntington Collection as an example. The ANS had that collection on loan from the Hispanic Society of America for what, almost 100 years, and what did they ever do with it? It just sat in dark trays, hidden away from the public. The non-ancient portion was never researched, published, nor displayed.

I was mighty happy that the collection got sold off. (And it's not because I don't like the ANS, but it became clear they were not funded well enough to do the research. They have their hands full with ancients and now, the Medallic Art Company archives.)

Collectors tend to appreciate and care for their collections more than institutions. And the thrill of the hunt will keep numismatics going more than a bunch of coins in museums.

I do have a few items that I believe to have more historical value than collector value. Those things would probably be worth donating to an appropriate institution.

But I would NEVER consider donating anything to an institution in Mexico due to rampant theft and lack of funding for proper care.

tcollects

think of all those coins in the Smithsonian that were harshly cleaned over the years, other huge collections mostly hidden away, targets for thieves ostensibly researching or staff who pilfer whatever they want. coins don't make good museum material anyway, they're small, hard to display securely, hard to explain, morbidly uninteresting to the vast majority of the public.