National Numismatic Collection - Introduction
The National Numismatic Collection (NNC) of the Smithsonian Institution is one of the largest numismatic collections in the world and the largest in North America. With over 1.6 millioin objects, the NNC contains many great rarities in coins and currency, from the earliest coins created 2,700 years ago up to the latest innovations in electronic monetary exchange, as well as fascinating objects such as beads, wampum, dentalia, and other commodities once used as money.
The collection emphasizes the development of money and medals in the United States. The core of the U.S. collection, consisting of more than 18,000 items, including coins of great rarity, came to the Smithsonian in 1923 from the United States Mint. Exceptional rarities include the Brasher half doubloon, the 1849 double eagle (first of the gold 20 dollar pieces), and two 1877 fifty dollar patterns. Other rarities are include the 1913 Liberty head nickel as well as all three types of the 1804 dollar, and two of three known examples of the world's most valuable coin, the 1933 double eagle, the third of which recently sold for 7.6 million dollars. Learn more about the collection.
Below you will find a selection of over 350 objects from the collection. We are working to expand and improve online access to additional objects in the near future, so stay tuned.
"National Numismatic Collection - Introduction" showing 9 items.
United States, Twenty Dollars, 1930 S
- Description
- United States Mint, San Francisco. Obverse: Liberty striding towards the viewer, bearing olive branch and torch. Reverse: Eagle in flight above the sun. Only two dozen of these coins survive. The mintage was small to begin with--only 74,000 pieces--and virtually all of the production run went into the melting pot.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1930
- mint
- U.S. Mint, San Francisco
- ID Number
- 1985.0441.1587
- catalog number
- 1985.0441.1587
- accession number
- 1985.0441
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
United States, Twenty Dollars, 1931
- Description
- United States Mint, Philadelphia. Obverse: Liberty striding towards the viewer, bearing olive branch and torch. Reverse: Eagle in flight above the sun.
- Perhaps twenty double eagles from this year produced at Philadelphia survived. This is one of the survivors.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1931
- mint
- U.S. Mint, Philadelphia
- ID Number
- NU*283645.1009
- accession number
- 283645
- catalog number
- 68.159.0395
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
United States, Twenty Dollars, 1931 D
- Description
- United States Mint, Denver. Obverse: Liberty striding towards the viewer, bearing olive branch and torch. Reverse: Eagle in flight above the sun.
- As many as three dozen may have survived, a huge number by the standards of the day which saw most gold coins melted. However, few specimens match the Smithsonian's specimen in terms of condition.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1931
- mint
- U.S. Mint, Denver
- ID Number
- NU*283645.1008
- accession number
- 283645
- catalog number
- 68.159.0396
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
United States, 20 Dollars, 1932
- Description
- United States Mint, Philadelphia. Obverse: Liberty striding towards the viewer, bearing olive branch and torch. Reverse: Eagle in flight above the sun. About two dozen coins have survived from the 1932 double eagle mintage.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1932
- mint
- U.S. Mint, Philadelphia
- maker
- Saint-Gaudens, Augustus
- ID Number
- 1985.0441.1610
- accession number
- 1985.0441
- catalog number
- 1985.0441.1610
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
United States, 20 Dollars, 1933
- Description
- United States Mint, Philadelphia. Production of gold coinage was halted early in 1933 as the United States continued to move away from the gold standard. All double eagles struck in 1933 were not issued or authorized to be released to the public. Instead, they were supposed to be melted down and conveyed as bullion to Fort Knox. But all of the coins were not melted down. A handful were spirited away and kept in hiding for decades. One double eagle dated 1933 surfaced recently, and a complicated arrangement monetized it so that it could be sold at auction for millions of dollars.
- This coin and another 1933 double eagle transferred from the U.S. Mint to the Smithsonian were the only legally owned with that date until recently.
- The 1933 double eagle marks the end of the era in which the U.S. Congress authorized circulating gold coinage.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1933
- mint
- U.S. Mint, Philadelphia
- maker
- Saint-Gaudens, Augustus
- ID Number
- NU*39166.0001
- accession number
- 130752
- catalog number
- NU*39166.0001
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
United States, Ten Dollars, 1933
- Description
- United States Mint, Philadelphia. Obverse: Liberty striding towards the viewer, bearing olive branch and torch. Reverse: Eagle in flight above the sun.
- A few dozen of these coins were released into circulation at the beginning of 1933. Only a handful remain today, the rest were melted.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1933
- mint
- U.S. Mint, Philadelphia
- ID Number
- NU*283645.1012
- accession number
- 283645
- catalog number
- 68.159.0334
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Norfolk, Nebraska, 1 Dollar, 1933
- Description
- During the Great Depression of the 1930s, regular money was withheld from circulation. Spending was curtailed, available cash was hidden, and, by the fall of 1932, runs on banks across the country were leading to "bank holidays" in state after state.
- By the beginning of 1933, bank closures were becoming commonplace. Indeed, the new president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, ordered a national bank holiday, during which time an army of examiners fanned out and checked the solvency of banks across the Republic. They certified the sound ones and closed the unsound ones. If people were hoarding money, and banks were locked up, how did buying and selling go on?
- The brief answer is that local institutions supplied their own money. Towns and counties, factories and unemployment agencies, a fish processor in Massachusetts, and a college in California all created money for their communities. Emergency issues came from all of the forty-eight states, plus the territories of Hawaii and Alaska and the District of Columbia. The new money was mostly made of paper, but issues in leather, wood, tinfoil, and other materials also appeared.
- In the Midwest, an idea first developed in Austria and Germany was tried in a number of places, including Norfolk, Nebraska. This Norfolk note bears simple designs, but the idea behind it was sophisticated. The city fathers reasoned that money would only be useful if it stayed in circulation.
- And the best way to ensure that would be to require affixing small stamps to the back of the note, dated by hand. If they weren't added on a regular basis, the bill became irredeemable. The authorities also added pleas for circulation on the top and bottom margins of the note. From the stamps' use, the plan worked.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1933
- maker
- Town of Norfolk, Nebraska
- signatory
- King, M. E.
- Miller, Rowan
- issuing authority
- Norfolk Scrip Committee
- ID Number
- 1992.0061.0148
- catalog number
- 1992.0061.0148
- accession number
- 1992.0061
- catalog number
- 92.61.148
- serial number
- 862
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
United States, 20 Dollars, 1933
- Description
- United States Mint, Philadelphia. Production of gold coinage was halted early in 1933. All double eagles struck that years were not to be released to the public, but melted down and conveyed as bullion to Fort Knox. But all of the coins were not melted down: as seems inevitable under these circumstances, a handful was spirited away, kept in hiding for decades. One coin surfaced recently, and a complicated arrangement resulted in its being sold at auction for millions of dollars.
- The two coins seen here are the only other 1933 double eagles legally held. They were transferred from the U.S. Mint to the Smithsonian Institution.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1933
- mint
- U.S. Mint, Philadelphia
- maker
- Saint-Gaudens, Augustus
- ID Number
- NU*39166.0002
- catalog number
- NU*39166.0002
- accession number
- 130752
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
United States, Ten Dollars, 1930 S
- Description
- United States Mint, San Francisco. Obverse: Head of Liberty facing left, with feathered headdress; stars above, date below. Reverse: Standing eagle facing left. Most of the run was melted. This is one of the finest survivors.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1930
- designer
- Saint-Gaudens, Augustus
- mint
- U.S. Mint, San Francisco
- ID Number
- 1985.0441.1588
- accession number
- 1985.0441
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center