Leimus, Ivar

Curator of the coin collection of the Estonian History Museum

Ivar Leimus (*1953) studied History, Archaeology and Art History at the University of Tartu (Dorpat). In 1976, he finished his studies with a thesis on the topic of “Die Münzfunde des 9. – 17. Jh. aus Westestland und Saaremaa als Geschichtsquellen” (translates as “Coin finds of the 9th to the 17th century of Western Estonia and Saaremaa as historical sources”). His dissertation, “Das Münzwesen Livlands im 16. Jahrhundert (1515-1581/94)”, also written in German, was published by the Stockholm Numismatic Institute in 1995.

Since 1976 Ivar Leimus has been working at the Estonian History Museum: First as curator of the coin collection, from 2006 on as Deputy Director, and now as curator again. He gave lectures at the Institute of History at the University of Tartu and in Tallinn.

His academic focus comprises Estonia’s history of money from the medieval period to the 20th century, whereby Ivar Leimus by all means looks across borders. He is a specialist for finds of the Viking Age, has published the Islamic coins found in Estonia, and has translated the chronicles of Johann Renner and Christian Kelch from middle low German to Estonian.

In 1994, Ivar Leimus received the Artur Puksow Award. And for his Sylloge volume featuring the Islamic coins of the public collections of Estonia he was awarded the Samir-Shamma-Prize by the Royal Numismatic Society. And in 2019 he was awarded the Honorary Award of the Society for International Monetary History.

Ivar Leimus is founding member and first chairman of the Association of Baltic Numismatists. He is a member of the Baltic Historic Commission and corresponding member of the Finnish Prehistoric Society. Furthermore, he is also a member of the Commission, which is responsible for the decisions regarding Estonian coin motifs.

Of course, Ivar Leimus has an entry in the Estonian Wikipedia and also in the German one.

Here you can find his publication list.

The Estonian History Museum also has an English website.

Howard Berlin has visited Ivan Leimus in his museum.

Of course, Ivar Leimus has his page on academia.edu, there you can find several of his publications.

And, of course, you may also just simply write an email to Ivar Leimus.

*as of 17 January 2020