January 10, 2013 – Since the epoch of Louis XIV the coin cabinet of the French National Library has been expanded continually. Today the French institution keeps among others approximately 130,000 Greek and Roman provincial coins. In order to make this incredible treasure available to a broader public the coins are to be digitised and inserted into an online database. All objects are expected to be available online by the end of 2013. Until then each month some 20,000 pictures will be added on average.
The coins being part of the French National Library the research differs slightly from other databases for the time being.
First of all, entering the search field you cannot limit the search to coins exclusively, so you might get books among the results as well as coins. The coins are listed in the database as monographs (monographie), the mints as authors (auteurs). In the full text search you may additionally enter the material or minting authority – but be aware of using French orthography! You can narrow down the result by adding the word ‘monnaie’ (coin).
At the moment descriptions of the coins are not part of the information, yet. Hence it is not possible to search for images (like gods, objects or animals depicted on the coins).
At the results site you can limit the list by activating ‘documents numerisé’ on the right. Then you will only see items with pictures.
On its website the National Library offers a detailed user guide in English. If you wish to read it calmly before using the database you may download it by clicking simply here.