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Now this is a coin cabinet!

ProfLizProfLiz Posts: 260 ✭✭✭✭

Courtesy of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and Art, here is an amazing coin cabinet from centuries past:

https://vimeo.com/250832458

Just some eye candy to enjoy while the museum is closed...

Comments

  • bearcavebearcave Posts: 3,993 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Don't believe mine looks like that! :o

    Ken
  • ashelandasheland Posts: 22,612 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Very cool!

  • JustacommemanJustacommeman Posts: 22,847 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Excessively cool

    m

    Walker Proof Digital Album
    Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
  • johnny9434johnny9434 Posts: 27,409 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Wow thats an awesone cabinet

  • JimnightJimnight Posts: 10,763 ✭✭✭✭✭

    That's nice.

  • IkesTIkesT Posts: 2,449 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Terrific!

  • SmudgeSmudge Posts: 9,208 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Beautiful piece of furniture. Better have nice coins to go in that one.

  • 1Bufffan1Bufffan Posts: 616 ✭✭✭

    What a "Lovely piece of Work" not many have the skill to make items like that anymore, everything is about Time and Money but I guess if you have the Money to have it built, you would not worry about Time. All things come in Good Time! they say, I'm waiting and still waiting.

  • ms70ms70 Posts: 13,946 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Thanks for posting that!

    Great transactions with oih82w8, JasonGaming, Moose1913.

  • thebeavthebeav Posts: 3,744 ✭✭✭✭✭

    That's beautiful !
    It kind of reminded me of this one that I used to own......yea, right.....
    https://youtube.com/watch?v=MKikHxKeodA

  • GoBustGoBust Posts: 582 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited March 25, 2020 12:59PM

    Thanks for posting. If this cabinet could talk about what treasures it had held, I'd listen

  • rickoricko Posts: 98,724 ✭✭✭✭✭

    That is, itself, an incredible work of art. Absolutely beautiful....Cheers, RickO

  • SanctionIISanctionII Posts: 11,660 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Very cool.

    I wonder if there are hidden compartments in the cabinet that have yet to be discovered, opened and inspected?

    If so, one could have their own treasure hunt without ever having to leave the room that the cabinet is located in.

  • bolivarshagnastybolivarshagnasty Posts: 7,348 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Seeing the craftsmanship on that cabinet makes me realize what carpentry hack I am.

  • dcarrdcarr Posts: 7,936 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Nice.

    No "cabinet friction" there !

  • 50cCOMMEMGUY50cCOMMEMGUY Posts: 211 ✭✭✭

    Super cool. I totally wasn’t expecting that massive compartment to open after the second lock. I thought it was a simple door at the lock that would open. Totally killer.
    Told my wife I want that for Christmas. She rolled her eyes and walked away.

    "Today the crumbs, tomorrow the
    loaf. Perhaps someday the whole damn boulangerie." - fictional Jack Rackham

  • astroratastrorat Posts: 9,221 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Very cool.

    Numismatist Ordinaire
    See http://www.doubledimes.com for a free online reference for US twenty-cent pieces
  • BryceMBryceM Posts: 11,721 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I love custom woodworking projects like that. Too bad such a thing is no longer practical for slabbed coins & security concerns.

  • OldIndianNutKaseOldIndianNutKase Posts: 2,700 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Fantastic cabinetry........and it would be very interesting to know not only the cabinet maker, but the owners of those cabinets. I would think that at some time those cabinets held tremendous collections. I wonder if these type of cabinets ever show up on Heritage Auctions?

    OINK

  • TyrockTyrock Posts: 287 ✭✭✭

    Outstanding!

  • Pnies20Pnies20 Posts: 2,016 ✭✭✭✭✭

    That is awesome.

    BHNC #248 … 108 and counting.

  • ms71ms71 Posts: 1,459 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Yeah, but are the drawers deep enough for slabs?

    Successful BST transactions: EagleEye, Christos, Proofmorgan,
    Coinlearner, Ahrensdad, Nolawyer, RG, coinlieutenant, Yorkshireman, lordmarcovan, Soldi, masscrew, JimTyler, Relaxn, jclovescoins

    Now listen boy, I'm tryin' to teach you sumthin' . . . . that ain't an optical illusion, it only looks like an optical illusion.

    My mind reader refuses to charge me....
  • happycollectinghappycollecting Posts: 264 ✭✭✭✭

    That's a super cool cabinet.

  • shinsakutoshinsakuto Posts: 13 ✭✭✭

    Cabinets like this are furniture work of art in their own right. How it preserve coins is another matter and would need to be checked over by an expert. In the old days harmful glue, fittings, leather, etc, are used that gave off gases and could contaminate coins. For centuries coin cabinets were ordered from craftsmen who makes general furnitures as per wishes of the patron. Its only in the latter half of the 19th century that professional cabinets placing higher emphasis on conservation emerges and sold through coin dealership.

  • keyman64keyman64 Posts: 15,452 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Wow, that’s cool! 😎

    I too wish she would have opened more of the cabinet or had been able to share more about who owned it, granted that information may not be known. The cabinet is fantastic from the outside alone! Getting inside of it just takes it to the next level.

    "If it's not fun, it's not worth it." - KeyMan64
    Looking for Top Pop Mercury Dime Varieties & High Grade Mercury Dime Toners. :smile:
  • what a stunner

  • pursuitoflibertypursuitofliberty Posts: 6,558 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Very cool. Wouldn't fit my decor, but it's a gorgeous piece.


    “We are only their care-takers,” he posed, “if we take good care of them, then centuries from now they may still be here … ”

    Todd - BHNC #242
  • SCTSCT Posts: 44 ✭✭✭

    So cool...

  • ZoinsZoins Posts: 33,811 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited August 29, 2020 8:51AM

    Here's a photo and excerpt of this piece:

    https://brooklynrail.org/2018/05/artseen/Pestana-Visions-of-Order-and-Chaos-The-Enlightened-Eye

    A lavish, gold trimmed specimen of cabinetry rests to the side of a periwinkle-hued room in the Carnegie Museum of Art’s exhibition Visions of Order and Chaos: The Enlightened Eye. Designed by David Roentgen, an eminent Louis XVI-era ébéniste, it is a hefty but refined medals cabinet made circa 1783. In its heyday, the cabinet’s owner would have used it to store collections of ancient coins, maps, books, and accoutrements of learning within an intricate matrix of interior compartments. Such artifacts not only expressed an esteem for learning, but also of dominion. Lulu Lippincott, curator of the exhibition, considers this and such pieces as its era’s hard drive, a micro-repository of knowledge and memory. It was also an incidental trophy case boasting the owner’s worldliness and cultivation. With construction materials such as mahogany and oak originating in far-flung corners of imperial reach, at a time when long-distance travel was still an extraordinary undertaking, the cabinet itself is as much a document of empire as any of its contents. Yet, as tremors of the French Revolution rumbled to the surface, these sorts of extravagances would soon find themselves on the chopping block like so many of the period’s doomed aristocrats.

    I had to look up ébéniste and this is what Google told me:

    L'ébéniste est un artisan qui transforme des bois, plus ou moins précieux, pour créer du mobilier fonctionnel ou décoratif.

    After Google Translate:

    The cabinetmaker is a craftsman who transforms woods, more or less precious, to create functional or decorative furniture.

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