“Portals to the Past”: Numismatics at Nickle Galleries
For the past seven months I have been studying abroad at the University of Calgary. The university’s Nickle Galleries is home to a fascinating collection of coins, one of the very best collections in Canada. This week I had the privilege of descending to the university’s vaults and interviewing Marina Fischer, the collection specialist, about the museum’s coinage and her experiences with numismatics.
What first made you interested in Numismatics and how did you become head of this collection?
My first exposure to Numismatics was during my Greek Art and Architecture course led by Kelly Olson, an amazing professor who now teaches at the University of Western Ontario. She took us to the museum here to look at some of the coins. The session was very brief, with only a few coins passed around. I just remember walking out of the session completely mesmerised and confused. The experience stuck with me for a very long time, and that prompted me to seek out a connection at the museum. I contacted the curator and I started volunteering for the collection during my undergraduate degree.
Later, when I was talking to the Head of the Department Hanne Sigismund Nielsen and my advisor Lisa Hughes about being accepted for my Master’s, I immediately informed them that I was particularly interested in coins and that I wanted to do a museum practicum. The department was very helpful and they organised that for me. I did a whole term intensive practicum course with Geraldine Chimirri-Russell and that really sealed my fate. For me, the coinage was just this mysterious and tantalising world hidden deep within the bowels of the museum behind bolts and thick walls. I always knew that if there were ever any opportunity I would love to be more involved.
When I was working at the university’s Visual Resource Centre, we had a staff Christmas party. It was held within the Nickle Arts Museum (the previous name for Nickle Galleries). There was a lottery or some kind of gift-giving and I actually won a coin of emperor Constans. I really felt something special happened that day, almost as if it were destiny or I had been chosen in some way to work in Numismatics. I will certainly keep that coin for the rest of my life.
Who donated the coins to the Nickle Galleries?
There were two original donors, a father and son. The Nickle family was very influential in the Alberta oil business. Samuel Nickle donated the money to build a museum and his son Carl Nickle donated 10,000 of his coins to the university with the intention of providing ‘within Canada a History of Mankind as related in Numismatics’.
Many other donations followed, and we still continue to receive generous support from the community. We have about 23,000 objects (coins, paper money and pre-coinage currencies) in the collection now.
(Source: Carl O. Nickle Letter from November 3, 1970. University of Calgary Archives 97.070_1.04).
Do you have a favourite coin in the collection?
My favourite coin is of Alexander the Great because I have been so fascinated by him as a human being. There were a lot of charismatic rulers and generals in the past, but his vision of the world was so ahead of his time. I think his vision is still ahead of our time right now. This coin is a gateway into understanding Alexander better — what he believed in, what he was thinking, what his ideology was. That’s how I see these coins. They are little portals to the past.
If you could acquire any ancient coin for Calgary’s collection from a different museum, is there one you would automatically pick?
I have to say that I am really fortunate right now because we have just acquired a coin that I have wanted for so long and so badly. Coins from the kingdom of Lydia (modern day Turkey) are seen as the very first coins in the world, so to have one is very special to me. Many people believe that they appeared for the first time around the mid-late 7th century BC. They are made out of electrum, the natural alloy of gold and silver. The electrum was originally found in the Pactoclus river and they impressed an image of a roaring lion on these small pieces of metal.
I have long been intrigued by these very first electrum coins, so acquiring this one with the support of the donors was a true milestone for me professionally. We won it at the Heritage Auction in the United States. We did not have the funds before, but interest in Numismatics is spreading and people are becoming more curious about the history of money. The support we received from the local community, especially the Calgary Numismatic Society and alumnus Spencer Stevens, was absolutely fundamental in adding that coin to our collection.
How can we tell if a coin is authentic?
There are no two identical ancient coins; that is always very suspicious. Our collection is quite old when it comes to Canadian collections. Carl Nickle collected in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, at a time when they did not have such advanced technology and highly accurate forgeries as we do now. We can also trace the provenances of all the coins that he purchased and he bought them primarily at auctions.
Do you have to clean or restore the coins which you acquire?
The coins we get from donations are already in excellent condition. We do not clean them now. We just leave them as they are.
If a coin does not have clear writing and names, what can we do to try and identify who or what it depicts?
After years of experience working with coins you really get to know right away at least what culture it is from, what civilisation, and approximately what period. From then on, there are some amazing online databases that we can use for identification, as well as the Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum volumes and other British Museum catalogues. Additionally, coin dealers and auction houses keep very detailed records of the coins that pass through their hands and take high-resolution photos, so I tend also to refer to those a lot.
When you brought the coins into my Tacitus class, you said that Tiberius was fairly loyal to Augustus’ coinage. Did any Roman emperors particularly change the coinage system?
We start to see the break in Julio-Claudian coinage formula with Nero. He is definitely depicting himself in a more realistic way and we can track quite neatly how he ages, following him from when he is a young boy to the end of his life. Augustus’ image, in contrast, stays unchanged.
It has been a privilege to have the opportunity to see the coins up close and feel their weight in my classes. It is definitely one of the aspects of my year abroad which will stay with me. I knew when I applied to the University of Calgary that it had an ancient coin collection, but I had no idea that students would be able to have so much access to it.
It has been my personal mission to open up the coin vault to students, faculty and the campus community in general, and to find a balance between security and access. I have been doing this now for a few years and it is hugely rewarding. When I go into classrooms and let the students handle and examine the coins, the feedback is incredible. It creates a unique experience that cannot be replicated.
We offer practicum courses through our Museum and Heritage Studies Program and hopefully we will be offering a full Numismatics course in the near future in Classics. The Classics and Religion Department has been incredibly supportive. Another really important part of my work is involving students in curating exhibitions and allowing them to experience first-hand all the steps from the beginning to the end, starting with ideas and research and then moving to the openings and all the programming that follows.
Are there any coins in the collection which have particularly special writing or images?
The reverse of the Alexander coin I mentioned earlier has a special feature. I was very excited about this because I was preparing a lecture on coins in the Holy Land, and then I discovered that we actually had the coin I was looking for, which was this one. It was minted in Ake in the Levant (modern Acre, Israel). It is quite unique because right under Zeus’ arm there is Phoenician writing — the little lines. That is what identifies the coin and I had no idea that writing was there until I noticed that by chance.
I also recently discovered, when doing research on Islamic money, that we have a coin that is called the ‘standing caliph’. They are quite hard to find as well but they are the beginning of Islamic coinage. The coin shows the fifth Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik standing: this is his own portrait, his own image. It is an excellent bronze coin in wonderful condition. We can see its details very clearly.
The collection is incredible and every time I think I know everything we have in it I stumble upon some amazing treasure.
Which coins in the collection are among the most valuable?
Possibly the octodrachms which were minted in Alexandria in the 3rd century BC and show the rulers of Egypt. But honestly I actually really don’t know. The monetary value of these coins doesn’t interest me, I’m only fascinated by their history.
Are there coins of mythological figures in the collection?
We have many coins featuring gods and goddesses and their attributes, as well as ones depicting monsters like Medusa.
Here in Alberta we do not really have collections of ancient artefacts. To be able to have ancient objects within the university which are accessible through exhibitions to the wider public is very important to me. It means we can expose more people to the studies of ancient history and art. At these events, a spark happens — a connection between the ancient object and the viewer. That is a very special relationship and many of the people who come to our coin exhibitions or lectures continue coming back. They are curious, often contacting me to discuss the coins further or to find out more about our programming. It is like a hook that goes into people. Visitors tend to really develop a passion for the coins.
What do you think are the key things that we can learn from coins that we cannot learn from written sources?
I always say coins do not lie. I find that information encapsulated in coins is more honest and raw, in a way. We know that ancient authors were not always truthful, sometimes intentionally and other times just due to lack of knowledge. We can read and extract information from coinage that can be quite enlightening and telling. For example, when we talk about the emperor Constantine we often refer to him as the first Christian emperor, but when we look at the numismatic evidence it has been estimated that less than 1 per cent of Constantine’s coins had any Christian symbols on them. So in my mind that definitely raises a question about the role of Christianity in Constantine’s reign and suggests that it may not be the way we have interpreted it in the past. That is what I mean by numismatic evidence being quite unique. I think it is absolutely important to use numismatic evidence to complement all of the other sources we have.
In my opinion, it is vital to provide hands-on experience and learning with coins, especially because coinage and its language can be quite intimidating. Coins are tiny pieces of metal which contain symbols and codes that we do not understand anymore. However, with a little bit of instruction we can learn the visual language of coinage. Once you see a symbol or letter that appears on ancient money you will never unlearn it because it does appear over and over again. If you see a similar type or similar imagery you will be able to identify it very easily and ‘read’ the coins. Training and exposure is very important for providing the necessary comfort level for students and researchers to use the numismatic evidence in their studies. Even in places that do not have numismatic collections (or full access to them), that should not be an obstacle because nowadays we have such remarkable images online. Anybody can study coins.
The response here has been absolutely wonderful. I have been working with many different departments on campus, giving lectures and handling sessions in art history, classics, religion, philosophy, economics, history, archaeology, anthropology, and even in language classes. We should not limit the coins. They really do apply to all kinds of studies and disciplines.
That must be so fun, to go to all the different departments.
Yes, it is. It brings me such joy to see students’ faces light up as they handle the coins. At first many people think that these are replicas and I have to assure them that they are totally real. When that realisation sinks in you can see students’ eyes widen. There is often a long line-up after the class to re- examine the coins and ask questions.
I have only been working directly with the Classics department for a few years, but I have already noticed that students are becoming more comfortable with Numismatics and they are researching, writing about and incorporating coins into their studies. Some of them are even starting to collect.
Every day I feel so blessed to be surrounded by these incredible ancient artefacts and to have the privilege to work with them so intimately and unlock their secrets.
A huge thank you to Marina for being so informative and inspiring.
The Nickle Galleries’ coin collection can be seen online at the following link: https://emuseum.ucalgary.ca.
The text of Carl Nickle’s letter was sourced from the publication ‘Money & Calgary: The City’s History of Numismatics’ which was created in 2019 by the University of Calgary’s Nickle Galleries and the Calgary Numismatic Society. Available on Academia.edu https://www.academia.edu/39867910/Money_and_Calgary_The_Citys_History_of_Numismatics.
This interview was conducted on March 17th, 2020 at 11.30am.
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