by Jørgen Sømod (numis@vip.cybercity.dk)
Try to look at a map of Europe. North for Germany there is a peninsula and some islands. That is Denmark. We have our own language. Of course you have heard about Denmark. Hans Christian Andersen was a Dane. The discover of electromagnetism, H.C.Ørsted, was a Dane. He also was the first who manufactured aluminium. The pholosopher Søren Kierkegaard was a Dane. The discover of speed of light, Ole Rømer was a Dane. And I am a Dane.
Coincollecting started here in the middle of 17th century. The universal-collectors should also have coins. Mostly antique. The King Frederik III (1648-1670) began coincollecting with looking at the different goldcoins in the treasury and placed them as a collection, which became the start of the national coin- and medalcollection placed in Copenhagen. With the king's interesting for coins, he let several medallists make the most beautiful dies for thalers in silver and ducats in gold. The collection should now be among the six best collections in the world. The other five could be Berlin, London, Paris, Sanct Petersburg in Russia and Vienna.
The first catalog of Danish coins was a catalog of the Johannes Mule collection from 1670. Not a big collection, but there were so many toprarities, that it now would be impossible making a similar collection.
Ten years later, 1680 came the first printed plate showing coins. It was in a book about a former king, Frederik II and it showed his coins and medals. Also here are showed a lot of superrarities. One of them is quite interesting. It is counterstamped, why it is possible among the three present known pieces to detect which of them was used for drawing on the copperplate.
1696 came a big folio-catalog written in latin over the royal collections, Museum Regium. The halfpart of the catalog was describing of coins and medals and with many copperplates of the pieces. A glorification of the absolute monarchy. The catalog was 1699 enlarged with a supplementary. More sciencific work was done by Thomas Bartholin, who 1701 also in latin published a book about medieval coins. And 1710 came a new enlarged issue of Museum Regium.
In the 18th century we had several important collectors. They were found among both the nobility and the cityzens. We know their collections from the saved auctioncatalogs. A coincollector at that time collected coins, tokens, medals and banknotes from ancient to present and from all countries. Of course the Danish sessions was the most important, but the real collector should have everything represented. Some of the 18th century catalogs contents informations, which also to day make them nessessary, if you want to understand the coinage in former times.
First of all. Coincollecting was in 18th century a royal hobby. Most European kings collected coins. It is their collections we now find as the different state collections. The kings should impress each other. In Denmark was after 50 years preparation in 1791 in format elephant-folio a two volume work with description of all Danish and Norwegian coins and medals. Volume I is the text and volume II is about 350 copperplates. A fantastic work. It shall be remembered, that Denmark and Norway from 1380 until 1813 was in union.
From the beginning of the 19th century started the more serious interesting for ancient numismatics and a three volume catalog of ancient coins in the royal collection was published by Chr.Ramus.
Many new hoards of medieval coins gave a better knowledge to that part of our coins, why the description of these coins in the big catalog from 1791 now was out of date. A new catalog of medieval coins was prepared by Chr.Ramus and Ole Devegge, but the book was never finished. The work stopped 1835. Some of it was printed and a few copies of the printed pages came out to a few collectors more than 30 years later. In the first halfpart of 19th century, most the collectors still collected the world. It was ancient and European medieval and modern coins including the medals. Oriental and American coins was not collected. I do not know about it should be vulgarian or barbaric. Many of the best 19th century collections were made by people employed at the king's coincollection. International the most wellknown is Christian Jürgensen Thomsen. Archaelogists all over the world will remember him as the man who parted the antiquity into stone age, broze age and iron age. The published parts of of his coincollections came out in seven volumes. Until 25 years ago it was common to see the catalog over his Roman coins used as generel reference catalog. After recent translation from French into English of the medievalcoins catalogs, this three volume work is now the bible for all collectors of European medieval coins.
In the second part of the 19th century most the important collectors only collected Scandinavian coins. From that time we also know a lot of the collector's international connections. Many rare coins were at the auctions bought to foreign museums and foreign collectors bought rare coins from their countries. And the Danish collectors bought Danish coins from all over the world.
At the end of the century was in Copenhagen a little numismatic community with many specialists and they began publishing numismatic books. One of them P.Hauberg became employed at the national coincollection. Personal Hauberg was owner of the absolutely best collection of Danish medieval coins. And in the years from 1884 to 1906 he published books about the Danish coins and coinage from the earliest times and until 1481. The parts containing the coins until 1241 are still used as reference. The plates from these two books have been reprinted. Hauberg's work over the coins from 1241-1377 was with only a few coins pictured, why a collector H.V.Mansfeld-Bûllner published plates of the same coins and arranged after the theoriees of Hauberg. Hauberg got furious, but it was the Mansfeld-Bûllner book and the M-B numbering all collectors including Hauberg himself used. The M-B book is out of date. We know many errors, but nobody have given us another work, why our coins from 1241 to 1377 still are cataloged with M-B numbers. And M-B has been reprinted several times.
Maybe the only collector we in Denmark always remember not to mention without his titular was general C.T.Jørgensen. He published 1888 a type catalog of the Danish and Norwegian coins from 1448 until 1888. Included in the catalog was also the bank notes. This catalog became very popular and many collectors collected after Jørgensen. His friend Vilhelm Bergsøe made a catalog over the Danish medals from 1789-1892. The quality was in top, it was reprinted 1978 and I doubt any now or in the future will try to make another catalog of these medals. 1895 Vilhelm Bergsøe came again with a combined standard catalog and auction catalog of the coins from the Danish possession Trankebar in India. In many years this catalog was out of date, but after detecting more than one hundred forgeries made in the first part of the 20th century, researchers have found the old catalog useful again. The same Vilhelm Bergsøe did also collect coins from the oversea. That is (for us) Amerika, Afrika, Asia and Australia. This collection was sold at Schulman in Amsterdam 1903 and among collectors and researchers of Caribbean and Southamerican coins, this catalog is just so important as the catalogs of the Fonrobert, Ulex and Guttag collections.
One more collector from the end of 19th century should be mentioned here. That is Ludvig Bramsen. All over the world should be known the three volume catalog of his collection of coins and medals from the time of Napoleon I.
For us now living, the end of 19th century stands as the classic time with collector's who could, would and did. They fighted to get the rarities. They collected the strange minors, the tokens, the bank notes, the medals. They collected. Not for investment, but because they were collectors. With a new century came a new generation of collectors. There came many collectors, but the medals and the bank notes got more or less uninterresting. To collect tokens was unworthy. It was the coins, just coins and nearly all collected only Danish coins. Very few collectors vere specialists and often you could get toprarities to a favorable price. In this time the collector H.H.Schou preparred his description of Danish and Norwegian coins 1448-1923. 20.000 coins including very small varieties were cataloged. 1926 when it was published it was the highest numismatic science. For cataloging coins it is still the best reference. For sciencific use, it is now worthless. We need other kinds of informations than mentioned at Schou.
An important referencework is the catalog over The L.E.Bruun collection. More than 20.000 Scandinavian coins, medals, tokens and banknotes are cataloged. He died 1923, but the collection is saved until 2023. To understand how important that collection is, shall only be mentioned, that the auction in 1925 over his duplicates was the biggest auction in this century!
Axel Nielsen with one book and Jul.Wilcke with seven books gave us the history of the coinage 1481-1914, but it was more the economic history than the numismatic, even Wilcke was a fanatic coincollector. And an employed at The Royal Coin- and Medalcollection in Copenhagen, Georg Galster wrote 1936 a new book about the Danish medals before 1788. Now it was not more nessessary to use the old elephantfolio-catalog from 1791. A Danish-American O.Blom Carlsen gave us in The Numismatist a cataloging of coins and tokens from Iceland, Greenland and Danish West Indies. And a collector Chr.Funck-Rasmussen wrote an updated catalog with the coins from Trankebar. Nobody knew, that most the former unknown coins were modern forgeries.
Just before WWII an employed at The Royal Coin and Medal Collection J.Østrup wrote an important book about early arabic coins, of which many are found here. Because the war, the book was never distributed. I don't know what really happened, but the book is now extremely rare.
Like many other countries we got under WWII a shortness for minor coins. Firms, small shopkeepers and private people issued their own encased postage stamps. The numismatists found it uninterresting, but a philatelist Carl Lund-Jensen cataloged this emergency money. A collector and later coindealer Johan Chr.Holm maked updated catalogs of coins, notes and tokens from Greenland and Faeroe Islands. And the same Johan Chr.Holm issued 1959 the first little catalog for collectors of the newest coins. That was 1848-1947. But no prices. Prices was something you could find in a stampcatalog, not in a coincatalog. From the end of the sixties the prices came to the coincatalogs.
1964 came the present standard catalog of Danish and Norwegian coins from 1541 to present. It is a typecatalog and journalistic state of numismatic knowledge at that time, written by Holger Hede. Mostly it was build on H.H.Schou, Axel Nielsen and Jul.Wilcke. Much informations from Schou's unpublished preliminary work was published here. Unfortunately much of the informations were fifty years old and unrevised. Schou began 1448 and Hede 1541. In this way came a lack in our catalogs from 1448-1540. As a youthwork I wrote such a catalog and published it on my 23 years birthday in 1967. Five years later Georg Galster wrote a similar catalog beginning in 1370's and with that important coinhistory, which I in my young age not was able to write.
1980 I wrote a book about the coins and tokens from Danish West Indies, of which I now have updated the sections with counterstamps and tokens. Finn Grandt-Nielsen wrote an important book about the extremely rare private minor notes from the Napoleon wars. A book about official bank nootes presented by a group came some years ago, but in the book there are so many pieces unlisted, why it should be leaved out from mention here. Except from a recent issued work on Danish official award medals by Lars Stevnsborg, no generel work has been done on modern medals in this century. Since 1972 a lot of small catalogs over different kinds of tokens have been issued, but still thousands of tokens are unlisted and only fragmentary something about their history have been issued. People interested in tokens all know, that I in my computer has developed a 1000 pages manuskript with catalog and history over our dear tokens.
Copyright © Jørgen Sømod 1998
Brought to you by Association des Numismates Francophones du Canada