SUBSCRIBER PROFILE: DR. HELEN WANG

In this issue I interview Dr. Helen Wang. Dr. Wang is Curator of East Asian Money at the British Museum. She has extensive knowledge of East Asian numismatics and has written several books on the subject. She also runs the website Chinese Money Matters. I interviewed her by email.

CG - Colin Gullberg HW - Dr. Helen Wang

CG: Tell me about your background. When did you get started collecting and/or researching coins? When did your interest in coins start?

HW: A couple of years after I finished my BA in Chinese at SOAS, London, I applied for a job at the British Museum, to be assistant curator working with Joe Cribb in the Department of Coins and Medals. I had no prior knowledge of numismatics and learned on the job, including doing a part-time PhD Money on the Silk: the evidence from Eastern Central Asia to c. AD 800. I'm not a collector though.

CG: From the British Museum's website I understand you are Curator of East Asian Money. What exactly do you do in this position?

HW: I look after the museum's large collection of East Asian money (coins, banknotes, charms, silver ingots and other money-related items), and help to make it accessible via research, publications, catalogues, the BM Collection Online database, talks, exhibitions, public enquiries, et cetera, and as a member of the departmental team, do broader numismatic and museum work, for example with the various numismatic societies and the International Numismatic Council's Survey of Numismatic Research.

CG: You have written on a wide variety of numismatic topics. Can you introduce your research to us? What research are you currently doing into coins or medals?

HW: Most of my publications relate to the BM's collection of East Asian money – my earliest research was on Chinese secret society membership tokens and certificates, and some of my recent work has been on the history and current state of the field. I've also researched money on the Silk Road, and twentieth-century (Mao badges, paper money, tokens), and other projects.

CG: Are there any important public coin collections in Britain outside the British Museum? What about numismatic libraries? Are these collections accessible online?

HW: Yes, there are important public coin collections – for example, the Heberden Coin Room at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford; Coins and Medals at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge; the Royal Mint Museum in Llantrisant; and the Brotherton Collection in Leeds.

In fact, many museums in the UK have collections of coins. The Money and Medals Network has a directory of these on its website, and the list on my website Chinese Money Matters draws heavily on that directory.

For numismatic libraries, there's the Department of Coins and Medals at the British Museum, the Ashmolean and the Fitzwilliam. There's also the shared library of the Royal Numismatic Society (RNS) and the British Numismatic Society (BNS), housed at the Warburg Institute, London. Charles Aylward at the Cambridge University has built up an excellent Chinese numismatic library there too.

CG: What have been the major changes in numismatics over your lifetime?

HW: Changes in technology and communications have changed the way we do everything. It's hard to imagine life without computers, digital resources, online search engines, email, mobile phones, digital cameras, scanners, PowerPoint, social media, and now Zoom.

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web