ANS EXHIBIT: SIGNS OF INFLATION

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V15 2012 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 15, Number 19, May 6, 2012, Article 10

You might want to mention the American Numismatic Society exhibit at the New York Fed on "signs of inflation". It was reviewed in Newsweek.

The exhibit opened at the end of March, and runs in conjunction with the ANS' long running exhibit Drachmas, Doubloons & Dollars: The History of Money, featuring over 800 pieces from the Society's collection, including a Brasher doubloon, an 1804 dollar and a Confederate half-dollar, as well as the world's most valuable coin – a 1933 Double Eagle (on loan). Here's an excerpt from the Newsweek review. -Editor

That's one of the takeaways from Signs of Inflation, a new exhibition at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The show, presented by the American Numismatic Society, looks at the history of inflation through the 7th century B.C. to present day. (Yes, even Ancient Rome experienced inflation-it needed to finance those wars.) Signs of Inflation includes almost 200 monetary objects, ranging from engraved gold coins and cowrie shells to twisted iron rods and handwritten IOUs. But it also demonstrates the myriad, complex ways a bank note-or coin, shell, or what have you-reveals a society's political and economic health. And it does so through treating money as partly an objet d'art

The exhibition's largest bill, in terms of monetary units, is from 1946 Hungary: a bank note, printed in July but never circulated, worth 1 sextillion pengö. The bill's design, which features a beautiful, serene-looking young woman, belies the fact that the country's monetary system was on the brink of collapse. Its worth at the time: 50 cents. Its worth after Hungary's new currency, the forint, was introduced in August of that year: 1/10,000,000 of a cent.

To read the complete article, see: The Value of Worthless Money (www.thedailybeast.com//content/newsweek/2012/04/29/exhibit-considers-the-politics-and-art-of-inflation.html)

To read the complete Press Release, see: Signs of Inflation (numismatics.org/wikiuploads/NewsEvents/SignsofInflationPressRel.pdf)

For more information, see: Signs of Inflation (numismatics.org/Exhibits/SignsofInflation)

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