Welcome to moneymuseum.com
Visit the MoneyMuseum, one of the first virtual museums for the history of money and currency. At its core you will find coins, images, historical maps and texts on money and the global history which illuminate the period from antiquity to present-day times. We offer you different kinds of access: you can search our database for interesting coins, sort the coin collection according to periods or visit one of our coin tours. And that is not all ...
OUR TIPS: The MoneyMuseum in Gold Fever
From the summer of 2010, the MoneyMuseum hosts an exhibition on gold at its premises on Hadlaubstrasse in Zurich. To give our future visitors a first impression of the show, we present the most famous...
OUR TIPS: Bride Money and Other Ceremonial Currencies
On January 4, 2010, the South African president Jacob Zuma married his fiancée Thobeka Mabhija. The ceremony was held according to the traditions of Zuma's Zulu tribe. Beforehand the president had pai...
COIN COLLECTION: Holy Roman Empire, City of Zurich, 1/2 Crown undated, c. 1558-1565
In 1521, Emperor Charles V finally conferred on Zurich the right to mint gold coins. At first the city issued goldguldens: in the 15th and 16th centuries these were the principal gold coins in the Hol...
COIN COLLECTION: Holy Roman Empire, City of Zurich, Ducat (c. 1630)
Ducats were the most important of all Zurich gold coins. Supposedly they were struck in Zurich for the first time during the 1630s – we can only presume that, since some of Zurich's ducats are undated...
TEXT COLLECTION: More Stories from Ancient Rome
What words have to say about Antiquity
Words tell stories just as much as coins. And that’s not surprising because words do have a history! Take the name for the new European currency, the euro, for instance, which gave its name to Europe.
And what may a woman surgeon and a manager have in common? Discover this interesting story at the MoneyMuseum ...
COIN TOURS: Money in Times of War, Part II: Paper Money
The history of money is at the same time part of the history of the peoples using it. And, since the history of peoples was hardly ever harmonious, also the history of war. For money and war are tight...
PICTURE TOURS: Zurich's Coins – a Short History through Time
By Calista Fischer, © MoneyMuseum 2002
(Translated by Graham Pascoe)
Picture Tours
Currencies of Modern Times
© MoneyMuseum 2002
(Translated by Graham Pascoe)
A glance at the modern currencies at the MoneyMuseum will not only reveal some of the twelve currencies which have now been repla...
Picture Tours
Money in the Land of the Rising Sun II: Japan's Road to the Yen
By Aila de la Rive, © MoneyMuseum 2005
(Translated by Geoffrey P. Burwell)
Well into the 16th century payments in Japan were made in the Chinese way: the Japanese government minted...
Coin Tours
Kissi Penny, Salt and Manilla: Traditional Money in Africa
The attempt to pack the various means of payment differing from western coins into one term is ethnocentric, and in addition quite difficult. For many years, the expression "primitive money" has be...