Coins
The University Library’s coin collection includes over 90,000 items and is not only the largest numismatic collection at a German university but also one of the most significant coin cabinets in Germany. It documents the international history of money from the beginnings in the 7th/8th century BC to the present day, including a comprehensive collection of banknotes and medals.
The University Library’s coin collection owes its existence primarily to its first full-time library director Ernst Gotthelf Gersdorf (1804–1874), who built up a coin cabinet with a broad historical orientation between 1841 and 1870 through systematic acquisitions. In particular, the acquisition of the significant coin collection of the Leipzig patrician Carl Friedrich von Posern-Klett, with its outstanding holdings of medieval coins, has established a special scholarly value of the Leipzig collection to this day.
The Leipzig coin collection includes holdings from Europe, the Middle and Far East, Asia, and America and covers all periods as far as possible. The actual coin collection is focused on the history of money up to around 1900. The medal collection begins in the early 16th century and extends to the present day. It was expanded prominently in 2018 through the acquisition of the Thieme collection on the prominent Leipzig medalist Bruno Eyermann. In recent years, the banknote collection has been expanded through significant donations.
Since 2015, the University Library’s coin collection has been systematically digitized as part of the Saxon State Digitization Program and made available online via the central German numismatics portal KENOM. Around one-third of the total collection is already available online via KENOM.