Enhance your Research with Princeton’s Coin Collection

Students at Princeton are fortunate to have access to one of the largest collections of coins anywhere in the United States. Made up of roughly 115,000 items, the collection includes coins, paper money, medals, and other tokens covering almost the entire history of human money— in fact, the university has coins minted in the 6th century BC by Croesus, who is credited with inventing the first system of gold and silver currency. The university’s collection serves many purposes. For example, you may have been in a class which has gone down to Firestone C Floor to look at coins from the time and place you were studying. The coins are also used for exhibitions and workshops. I’m writing here to explain to you how you can use these coins to do great research.

A small gold coin in the photographer's left hand.

Yours truly holding a 1500 year-old coin in Firestone Library

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How and Why to Use Firestone Special Collections

Hand turning page of a book of 13th century poems in Firestone special collections.
Hand turning page of a book of 13th century poems in Firestone special collections.

Where can you find trinkets Albert Einstein collected in Japan, diaries and manuscripts by Toni Morrison, and an autographed manuscript of The Great Gatsby? None other than our very own Harvey S. Firestone Memorial Library of course! Welcome to the wonderful world of one of Princeton’s coolest resources: Firestone special collections. Basically, it contains anything in the University’s possession that is rare, valuable, and/or too old and fragile to be removed from the library. I learned about special collections recently through my AAS 244 class on Pre-20th Century Black Diaspora Art in which we often check out art and related manuscripts in the special collections.

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