Museums

Australian museums

The National Museum of Australia in Canberra houses an extensive Australiana collection.

Museum Victoria in Melbourne houses an extensive collection of Australian coins, tokens and banknotes, which are progressively being brought on-line. To date the entire token collection is available on-line, along with many other pieces. These can be accessed by going to Museum Victoria Collections & Research and then typing a key word for the item of interest in the Search the Collections box.

The Powerhouse Museum in Sydney houses an important collection of Australian coins, tokens and banknotes.

The Australian Centre for Ancient Numismatic Studies at Macquarie University in Sydney holds a very important collection of the coinage of Hadrian along with coins from Ancient Greece.

The Western Australian Maritime Museum in Fremantle holds a large collection of coins from Dutch and other shipwrecks found off the West Australian coast, many of which are accessible at its numismatic database.

The National Library of Australia in Canberra holds an extensive collection of books and other manuscripts, and is also the link to libraries around the country.

The Australian War Memorial in Canberra is the nation’s repository for military artefacts and has on-line research facilities.

Noteprinting Australia in Melbourne has responsibility for the printing of the nation’s banknotes, but its collection of banknotes has been transferred to the Reserve Bank of Australia at 65 Martin Place, Sydney.

Reserve Bank of Australia Museum, a virtual museum of Australian banknotes, also has a currency museum at 65 Martin Place, Sydney.

The Westpac Museum at 6-8 Playfair Street, The Rocks, Sydney has a feature exhibition, currently The Convict’s Bank, The People’s Bank and Australia’s Bank.

The ANZ Banking Museum, is housed in the lower ground floor of the ‘Gothic Bank’ at 380 Collins Street, Melbourne and tells the story of Australia’s banking heritage through displays of items such as banknotes and coins, moneyboxes, office machines, firearms, gold-mining equipment and uniforms.

The Royal Australia Mint in Canberra is the central Mint for Australia.

The Perth Mint in Perth is Australia’s oldest operating Mint, having been established in 1899.

The Sovereign Hill Gold Museum in Ballarat commemorates one of the great Australian gold rush sites.

The Nicholson Museum at the University of Sydney has an extensive collection of Greek, Hellenistic and Roman coins. Its current exhibition Faces of Power: Imperial Portraiture on Roman Coins includes 1309 coins of Roman emperors and their wives (until September 2007).

The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery was established by The Royal Society of Tasmania, the oldest Royal Society outside England, and is fortunate to have one of the finest numismatic collections in Australia. The collection includes coins from c600 BC to the present, banknotes, promissory notes, commercial tokens, commemorative medals, decorations, campaign medals and badges. In total the Museum holds more than 25,000 of these precious objects. Highlights include ancient Roman and Greek coins, gold and hammered coins of Great Britain, Victoria and George Crosses awarded to Tasmanians, Tasmanian commemorative and presentation medals, a fine collection of German medals by Karl Goetz, and early Tasmanian trading tokens.

The Art Gallery of South Australia in Adelaide has a significant numismatic collection, including the original dies of the Adelaide 1 pound and 5 pounds.

The National Sports Museum located at the MCG in Melbourne has an extensive collection of sporting memorabilia, including medals and badges.

Overseas museums

The Royal Mint, lots of offers from their own coin club.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has all you need to know about New Zealand currency.

The British Museum. This famous institution has a collection of over a million coins, and the HSBC Money Gallery is well worth a visit.
Department of Coins and Medals what’s on and how to contact them.
World of Money gives details of their interactive CD ROM

The Fitzwilliam Museum Department of Coins & Medals. An excellent site, well worth a visit. Their Early Medieval Corpus is now on line – this is an attempt to record all single finds of coins minted between AD 410 – 1180 and discovered in the British Isles. Currently 2,700 items are catalogued. Details of the Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles can also be found on this comprehensive site.

Hunterian Museum. The new permanent numismatic exhibitions based on the renowned 18th-century cabinet of Doctor William Hunter, who bequeathed his collections to the University of Glasgow, and supplemented by later additions.

Ashmolean Museum. The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford is the host to Roman Provincial Coinage on-line, an invaluable resource for those interested in this area.

Pobjoy Mint, the major British private mint.

Monnaie de Paris, French National Coinage Museum in Paris. Site (various languages) gives history of coinage plus details of exhibition displays plus images of the new.

Geldgeschichtliches Museum der Kreissparkasse Köln, a website-based numismatic history museum (in German).

Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, in particular, see the magnificent Berlin City numismatic collection on-line.