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New exhibition of old coins opens

"There is money buried everywhere in the canton if you look for it," said Bernhard Bigler, who is responsible for the new exhibition of old coins which opened on Saturday with great interest from the public at the Museum of Ancient History. "In fact more and more coins have been found since the Cantonal Department of Archaeology made a point of looking for them in the intermediate floors of old buildings."
 
On display are shiny gold ducats, old shillings and silver pennies as well as old Celtic coins made from a copper alloy called potin. These are so small it is easy to understand how they got lost. Then there are gold nuggets and samples of gold dust, just as one would imagine if one came across hidden treasure.
 
Miniature drawings showed how they were all produced, with metal poured into spot plates to make the blank coins before being stamped with a heavy hammer. In fact visitors to the exhibition can have a go at this process themselves, though only on tin to keep the costs down.
 
In another part of the exhibition, Roman coins are on display, with denarii, sesterces, asses and aurei (photograph), the latter being gold coins issued between the first century BC to the fourth century AD. According to legend, one aureus and a quarter of a sestertius was what a Roman legionnaire got paid per day, just enough to buy half-a litre of wine.
 
Bigler also mentioned the 45 thirteenth-century silver pennies found in the Oberwil woods in Cham, from the days when Zug had its own currency. "Then, as the years went by," explained museum curator Ulrich Eberli, "there was a trend for simplification with first the cantons and then national states having their own coins. Now we even have currency unions. And soon all we will need will be credit cards."
 
The exhibition at the museum in the city's Hofstrasse (second photograph) continues until Sunday 17 June. Opening times are from 2 pm until 5 pm on Tuesdays to Saturdays.
   
 
 
 
 


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