Cornell Coin Collection
About this collection
This digital collection is part of a larger aggregate of five distinct collecting areas on antiquities, which include plaster casts, gems, photographs and squeezes. Cornell University owns several collections of antiquities – originals and reproductions – from the ancient Mediterranean. Acquired mostly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, their primary purpose was to serve as hands-on material for teaching and research. Once housed on the ground floor of Goldwin Smith Hall, the University’s former Museum of Archaeology, they are now dispersed over several institutions, colleges, departments and buildings on campus.
Historical context
Cornell's Coin Collection comprises ca. 1500 gold, silver and bronze coins from ancient Greece and Rome, and ca. 300 coins from the Byzantine empire, with some additions from Lydia, Persia, the Sassanid Empire, China and modern Europe. A large number of the coins was acquired by Cornell Professors Eugene P. Andrews and Frederick O. Waage in the first half of the 20th century.
Using the collection
For questions about this collection, contact the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections at rareref@cornell.edu.
More information
- Collection steward
- Katherine Reagan, Ernest L. Stern '56 Curator, Rare Books & Manuscripts
- Metadata creation
- Prof. Annetta Alexandridis, Department of History of Art and Visual Studies, Prof. Verity Platt, Classics Department
- Funding
- Grants Program for Digital Collections in Arts and Sciences, awarded to Annetta Alexandridis, 2011
- Credits
- This collection overview was last reviewed in 2025.
- Collection sources