MORE ON THÉODORE EDME MIONNET

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V24 2021 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 24, Number 21, May 23, 2021, Article 10

MORE ON THÉODORE EDME MIONNET

Regarding Roger Burdette's question about "M. Mionet, Curator of the French National Museum", David Powell writes:

"The name is usually spelt Mionnet, with the middle consonant doubled. There are one or two brief biographical references to him online, e.g. the following, but they do not seem to contain much more than a few sentences"

David adds:

"These days Mionnet is best known for his scale {see https://www.sizes.com/units/mionnet.htm }, used for describing coin diameters before the use of millimetres for the purpose became the norm. It is widely used in 19th and early 20th cent listing, with Mionnet.nn {nn in range 1-20} used to describe the size of each piece. "

https://www.sizes.com/units/mionnet.htm

Hadrien Rambach writes:

"The French Wikipedia entry is actually rather detailed."

Here's a Google-translated excerpt from the entry. -Editor

He is the son of Jean Antoine Edme, ordinary court usher of the king and his wife, Marie Elizabeth Théodore, domiciled in the former rue de la Mortellerie, in the Saint-Gervais district (Paris). He was baptized in the parish of Saint-Jean-en-Grève Church on September 2, 1770. He studied law at the College of Cardinal Lemoine then worked for a while as a lawyer, before stopping for health reasons. He then became deputy curator of the cabinet of antiques of the king's library, which has become the current Department of Coins, Medals and Antiques of the National Library of France. He brought together a collection of Greek and Roman coins, of which he established the catalog. His best-known works are the Description of ancient Greek and Roman medals with their degree of rarity and their estimate (1806-13, 7 vols.) And On the rarity and price of Roman medals (1815, reed. 1847). Traveling in Italy, he made many valuable numismatic discoveries which earned him being elected in 1830 to the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Letters. He is domiciled at 14 rue des Francs-Bourgeois, in Paris.

He was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor on October 19, 1814, during the reign of King Louis XVIII. The appointment decree was signed by François Guizot, then Secretary General at the Ministry of the Interior, under Father de Montesquiou.

He is the designer of the Mionnet scale, which has 19 circles and makes it possible to precisely indicate the diameter or modulus of a part.

He is buried in the Père-Lachaise cemetery (41st division).

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%A9odore-Edme_Mionnet

Andy Singer and George Kolbe also responded. Thanks, everyone! Below is an image of the Mionnet scale from the January 1877 issue of the American Journal of Numismatics, -Editor

Roger Burdette writes:

"Thanks to all for their help. That 'extra' N adds a lot!"

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
NOTES FROM E-SYLUM READERS: MAY 16, 2021 : Query: M. Mionet, Curator of the French National Museum (https://www.coinbooks.org/v24/esylum_v24n20a09.html)

Wayne Homren, Editor

The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org.

To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com

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