The American Numismatic Society (or ANS) is a New York City-based organization dedicated to the study of coins and medals.
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The American Numismatic Society is an organization dedicated to the study of coins, currency, medals, tokens, and related objects from all cultures, past and present. The Society's headquarters in New York City has the foremost research collection and library specialized in numismatics in the United States. These resources are used to support research and education in numismatics, for the benefit of academic specialists, serious collectors, professional numismatists, and the interested public.
The collection of coins, medals and paper currency consists of over 800,000 objects drawn from all periods and cultures. In many fields its collections are the most comprehensive anywhere in the world. The Society's library, home to more than 100,000 books, journals, auction catalogues, manuscripts and archival documents, is the finest numismatic library in existence.
The Society publishes three journals, the American Journal of Numismatics, Numismatic Literature and the Colonial Newsletter, as well as books on coins and medals. The society also publishes The ANS Magazine.
The ANS's permanent exhibit, Drachmas Doubloons and Dollars: The History of Money, is on view at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Coin exhibits include a Brasher doubloon, an 1804 silver dollar, and the 1933 Double Eagle (on loan).
The Society awards the J. Sanford Saltus Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Art of the Medal (the "Saltus Award"). The 2009 award recipient was British medallist Ron Dutton.
The ANS is a constituent member of the American Council of Learned Societies.
ANS should not be confused with the Colorado Springs-based American Numismatic Association.
The ANS was formed by a group of collectors in New York City in 1858, at a time when many learned societies were created. Although the initial meeting of the collectors occurred in March 1858, the Society looks back to April 6, 1858 as its date of creation; that was the day on which the fledgling Society's first constitution and bylaws were approved by the membership. That same month, the Society accessioned its first coin. In 1865, it was incorporated as the American Numismatic and Archaeological Society or ANAS [1]. In 1907, the name was changed back to the original one [2]
“The founders were Edward Groh, James Oliver, Dr. Isaac H. Gibbs, Henry Whitmore, James D. Foskett, Alfred Boughton, Ezra Hill, Augustus B. Sage, Asher D. Atkinson, M.D., John Cooper Vail, W. H. Morgan, Thomas Dunn English, M.D., LL.D., and Theophilus W. Lawrence. The corporators were Frank H. Norton, Isaac J. Greenwood, John Hannah, James Oliver, F. Augustus Wood, Frank Leathe, Edward Groh, Daniel Parish, Jr., and William Wood Seymour.”[1] Benson Lossing in the History of New York City Volume II wrote in 1884 that “the prime objects of the society are the cultivation of the science of numismatology, the promotion of the study of American archaeology, and the collection of coins and medals and specimens of archaic remains.”[1] Later, ANS changed its mission to focus primarily on all aspects of coins and medals.[2]
Under the leadership of several dynamic, resourceful and generous presidents, the ANS grew to become a major international center for numismatic research. One of these presidents, Archer M. Huntington, scion of the family who built the Southern Pacific Railroad and a serious collector, gave the Society land at 155th Street and Broadway and contributed toward construction of the neoclassical building which opened in 1908. In 1929, Huntington underwrote the expansion of the building which doubled its size. As President of the ANS from 1916 to 1941, Edward T. Newell, a scholar of Greek coins, guided the Society toward making its mark worldwide. He also left his enormous personal coin collection to the Society.
It was in the latter half of the 20th century that the Society evolved into the foremost numismatic research institution in the United States. Its cabinet of nearly one million objects ranks with the largest in the world and is an extraordinary resource for students of the humanities. Its unique library of over 100,000 items is the most comprehensive collection of numismatic literature in existence.
The Society's Eric P. Newman Graduate Seminar in Numismatics, established in 1952, continues today as a training program in the discipline and numbers among its alumni many scholars now in academic positions including several of the Society's current curatorial staff.[3] The Society administers a variety of fellowships and grants designed to promote research in numismatics and encourage use of the collections. The ANS is also an important disseminator of research, and enjoys a reputation as the largest non-profit numismatic publishing house in the world, issuing books, periodicals, catalogues, and audio/visual sets in a variety of series and special issues.
Notable members of the Society include:
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