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V24 2021 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 24, Number 19, May 9, 2021, Article 6

Last week we discussed digital images of paper money items related to the chemical and petroleum industry from the Robert J. Bauman Collection at the Science History Institute. Curator Patrick Shea writes: "The digitized content of the Bauman Collection is only a small sample of the much larger collection. The full finding aid to that with images and descriptions of every piece in the collection can be downloaded from the catalog record".

The Finding Aid is basically a 350-page illustrated catalog of the collection. Here's the Appendix which describes the collection. -Editor

Robert Bauman, President of Polymer Consulting International, started collecting world paper money in 1980 when he joined the consulting firm of Chem Systems and started to travel internationally. The chemical and petroleum collection started around 1990 when he found some paper money from BASF and Bayer. Many of these are readily available to collectors, due to the large number that were issued.

Most of the issues are from chemical companies. Very few petroleum companies issued coins or banknotes for use in their own facilities. However, some issued promotional currency which became an adjunct to the collection.

As the research progressed and as multiple sources were used to acquire more coins and banknotes, some contemporary postcards that showed the plants that issued the money were obtained. Most show the plants at, or before, the time when they issued the money. This became another objective of the collection sort of putting a face to the name. The search for new coins and banknotes sometimes resulted in finding some commemorative medals honoring a milestone (e.g., fiftieth anniversary), the company's founders or someone that greatly contributed to the company's success.

The most interesting aspect of collecting currency from the chemical industry was the discovery of chemical companies that made great contributions to the development and growth of the chemical industry, particularly in Germany, that are no longer in existence. They either closed, or more often, were acquired by one of the major chemical companies still operating today. Some of these companies that no longer operate under their original names include: de Haen, Th. Goldschmidt, Grasselli, Griesheim, Harkortsche, and Wolff & Co. Some of the acquiring companies include Dow, DuPont, Evonik and Hoechst.

Some of the research is incomplete due to the limited information available on the web. Moreover, much of the information on French and German companies were only available in French or German which complicated the research. As such, if anyone has any additional information on these companies or has any corrections, please send them to: rbauman@polymerconsulting.net

The collection, which contains more than 450 items collected over a thirty-year period, represents some interesting aspects of the history of the chemical and petroleum industry.

If you have any items not included in the collection and wish to donate them to the Science History Institute, you can contact Patrick Shea, Chief Curator of Archives and Manuscripts. pshea@sciencehistory.org