Münzkabinett: permanent exhibition

Münzkabinett (Coin Cabinet)

In times of Pay Pal, credit cards and digital coins – so-called BitCoins – cash has increasingly vanished from everyday life. At the same time special events, such as the minting of the five-euro coin in 2016, meet with unimagined interest. The Dresden Münzkabinett brings together a collection of approximately 300,000 objects, ranging from antiquity to the present day.

Exhibition Site Residenzschloss

Opening Hours daily 10—18, Tuesday closed 21/05/2024 10—18 (zusätzlich geöffnet)

Admission Fees normal 14 €, reduced 10,50 €, under 17 free, Groups (10 persons and more) 12,50 €

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Though the term “coin cabinet” seems to suggest only coins, the collection offers much more: Medals, banknotes, honorary decorations, bonds, minting technology, stamps and play money can be admired here. But the money shown here was often much more than a means of payment. In their day, coins also were a means of communication, a medium of dissemination for important political messages and thus part of visual politics. August the Strong, for example, commissioned his depiction on a medal as Hercules after he was crowned King of Poland, and when his son was born, he ordered a medal to be struck in his honour.

das Münzkabinett mit Publikum — **Ausstellungsansicht Münzkabinett**

Today, 3,300 exhibition items presented in four rooms of the Dresden Residenzschloss (Royal Palace) explain the various aspects of money: To start out, visitors learn about the business and culture of making coins in Saxony, as the silver deposits in the Ore Mountains were once the foundation for the region’s wealth. Then follows a sweeping chronological presentation of the history of the coin: from antiquity to the present, from the Greek drachma to the euro. The oldest coin on display is 2,500 years old and originates in Lydia, a kingdom that was located in today’s Turkey.

Innenansicht Münzkabinett mit Vitrinen und Münzen und Medaillen

The grand opening

In June 2015, the Münzkabinett returned to its original home in the Residenzschloss with its long-awaited permanent exhibition, designed around a new concept.

There is a place for art as well: The exquisite medals of the Renaissance came to constitute a special form of relief artwork. Imaginative coin names, counterfeit coins, weights and not least of all coins reworked into jewellery complete an understanding of money in all its complexity. Even recent political events are represented: In 2003, the Münzkabinett acquired an abstract colour medal created by the American artist Marika Somogyi, a response to the terror attacks of 11 September 2001 in New York. Most recently, the bronze medal Syria 2015 by Warsaw-based Syrian artist Majid Jammoul entered the collection. Like the media images of Aleppo, it shows a city destroyed by air raids.

ungleichmäßig geformte Münze, darauf ein Tierkopf

Highlights of the collection

The oldest coin

The oldest object in the Dresden Schloss is more than 2,500 years old and originates from Lydia, an ancient kingdom in a region of modern-day Turkey. The first coins were made from electrum, an alloy of gold and silver.

Highlights of the collection

Brakteat

The silver for this bracteate came from the Erzgebirge region of Saxony. The margraves of Meissen possessed not only ownership rights (Bergregal) over all mineral deposits in their lands, but also the right to mint coins. They secured the monopoly on silver for the silver extracted by the miners had to be handed over to the territorial sovereign. Saxony owed its great wealth to its silver.

goldene Münze mit Seitenprofil eines Königs — **100-facher Dukat 1621** Polen, König Sigismund III. Wasa (1587-1632), Vorderseite, Münzstätte Bromberg (Bydgoszcz), Gold, Ø 68,8 mm, 348,37 g

Highlights of the collection

100-facher Dukat

This gold coin, which weighs 348.37 g, is the heaviest gold coin in the Münzkabinett collection. It was never intended for monetary transactions, but was struck to be presented as a gift. King Sigismund III issued it to commemorate his victory over Sultan Osman II at the Battle of Chocim in 1621. This example is mentioned in the earliest inventory of the collection‘s gold.

Geldschein, darauf hauptsächlich Text — **Unternehmen Bernhard im KZ Sachsenhausen, Fälschung einer britischen 5-Pfund-Note 1935 der Bank of England aus der Zeit des Zweiten Weltkrieges**

Highlights of the collection

Unternehmen Bernhard

The bank note represents the largest known counterfeiting operation in history. During the Second World War, Germany‘s Nazi government forged English bank notes under the code name “Operation Bernhard”. With the help of experts and using special paper, qualified prisoners at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp went to considerable lengths to produce fake English bank notes worth a total of £132 million. The aim was to destabilise the Allied economy.

Further Exhibitions

All Exhibitions

Münzkabinett (Coin Cabinet)