October 10, 2013 – In this month a project is going to end that aimed at making things better by privatisation. In the 90s the Netherlands started to privatise their mint museum and the Royal coin cabinet. Together with the coin collection of the Netherland Bank these three renowned institutions were merged to form the Geldmuseum Utrecht in order to operate ‘economically neutrally’.
In 2007 the museum was inaugurated but as soon as in 2008 it had become clear that the rent alone of the new museum was too high to let the distinguished institution work self-sufficiently. The government, hence, granted 750,000 euros per year but in 2011 they rejected any further assistance. As a first consequence the academic staff was fired. Although efforts were undertaken to find new ways of management nothing worked out. In May it was made public that the museum must be cleared until January 1, 2014. Therefore it will definitely close by the end of October.
The future of the collection is not clear. It will be looked after in some way but no longer for educational purposes.
If you want some inside information from the view of a person concerned, don’t miss the article written by Christel Schollardt, who headed the department of collections and research at the Geldmuseum Utrecht, in our current MintWorld Compendium.
The website of the Geldmuseum Utrecht is still available.