Defining a "numismatist"

"What exactly defines numismatists"
"Who qualifies as a numismatist?"

The following are short definitions I've collected from various sources:
- a person who studies or collects coins, medals, etc (The Collins English Dictionary and Dictionary.com)
- a collector and student of money (and coins in particular) (Vocabulary.com)
- Someone who collects coins. (Dictionary of Unfamiliar Words)
- Numismatists include collectors, specialist dealers, and scholars who use coins and other currency in object-based research. (Wikipedia.com)

Although the role of a numismatist is generally accepted to be associated with collecting coins and related objects, one may argue that there are slight discrepancies and differences in definitions on who a numismatist exactly is or what they do. Can a coin collector call oneself a numismatist solely for collecting coins, or must they also know the history behind each piece? Should someone have an academic background or formal training related to numismatics to be qualified as a numismatist? Can a numismatist even focus solely on the history of coins or should they also have knowledge on the value of each coin? Must people, other than studying the history and background of coins, engage in the practices of selling, buying, and/or grading coins before they can call themselves numismatists?

I started pondering about these questions recently, and I thought of sharing these in the Numista forum as well. Looking forward to your healthy discussions!

Interesting question.

Whatever dictionaries say, I would never define a coin collector as a numismatist. As a matter of fact, I've seen coin collectors who are actually detrimental to the discipline of Numismatics, e.g. by making up stories about coins (to increase their value), by hoarding coins away from scholars, by acquiring coins on the black market (this is a big one!), etc.

A numismatist often has an academic background in History and Archaeology, but not necessarily, especially in the case of numismatists of modern periods. Note also that many archaeologists care about coins mostly because they help in establishing the chronology of a site. So, the fact that they find and publish coins is not necessarily enough to consider them numismatists.

What defines a numismatist, I would argue, is the publication of research that increases our knowledge of history, economics, etc., based on coins, either individually or as a social and economic phenomenon. It could be based on the study of types, metallic composition, archaeological deposits, hoard distribution, or die linkage. The publication in the form of books or articles may or may not be academic. The production of catalogues of modern coins is kind of a borderline situation. You have to know a lot about the coinage of a given period or region to rationalize it into a catalogue. In many cases, this involves a lot of research, especially for older periods without good archives.

A very recent example of a numismatic study that improved our understanding of modern coinage is the re-classification of the Fugio cents from being a "colonial" coinage to an authentically US Federal coinage.

The contribution of numismatists (who are often historians who use coins as a primary source) is greater for periods where literary documentation is poor or lacking, such as in the ancient world. Thus, if you study the "Military Anarchy" of the third-century Roman Empire, you may know that an emperor called Domitianus (hence Domitian II, given that there is a major emperor of that name who ruled 81-96 CE) is known exclusively because of three coins struck in his name (two of which were actually discovered very recently). By comparison, coins contribute virtually nothing to the historian of the Second World War. Perhaps an economic historian of that period will find coins somewhat useful, but his main documentation is likely to be legislation that was passed to change the composition of coinage to redirect metals like copper to the war effort.

A book that is very affordable and should still be easy to find is Philip Grierson's Numismatics published in 1975. Grierson was one of the great numismatists of the 20th century, specializing in Byzantine coinage.

In relation to the comments in the original post:

Yes.
No.
Yes.
No.

I think camerinus makes many good points about what defines a professional numismatist.

However, I think there are many amateur numismatists who might acquire a high level of expertise in one or more areas of numismatics without formal training, without ever publishing, and without being compensated for their expertise.

Quote: "tdziemia"​I think camerinus makes many good points about what defines a professional numismatist.
​
​However, I think there are many amateur numismatists who might acquire a high level of expertise in one or more areas of numismatics without formal training, without ever publishing, and without being compensated for their expertise.

I can certainly accept the notion of amateur vs. professional numismatists.

In fact, I would argue that answering numismatic questions on Numista and other such platforms can be a form of numismatic publication in the literal sense, i.e. a piece of writing (of whatever length) on money that is accessible publicly. All depends what questions one answers.

This literal definition of "publication", too, has its limitations. Some members of this site know the academic sites academia.edu and researchgate.net, which are designed for scholars to upload their papers. Well, there are also many crackpots who upload ─i.e. "publish"─ their crackpot theories (Apollo missions = hoax; Jesus went to Spain; Ancient Egyptian was a Bantu language; etc. etc. etc.).

Lastly, if one has much knowledge that is never shared, then the designation "numismatist" becomes rather meaningless.

Quote: "Camerinvs"​Interesting question.
​
​Whatever dictionaries say, I would never define a coin collector as a numismatist. As a matter of fact, I've seen coin collectors who are actually detrimental to the discipline of Numismatics, e.g. by making up stories about coins (to increase their value), by hoarding coins away from scholars, by acquiring coins on the black market (this is a big one!), etc.
​
​A numismatist often has an academic background in History and Archaeology, but not necessarily, especially in the case of numismatists of modern periods. Note also that many archaeologists care about coins mostly because they help in establishing the chronology of a site. So, the fact that they find and publish coins is not necessarily enough to consider them numismatists.
​
​What defines a numismatist, I would argue, is the publication of research that increases our knowledge of history, economics, etc., based on coins, either individually or as a social and economic phenomenon. It could be based on the study of types, metallic composition, archaeological deposits, hoard distribution, or die linkage. The publication in the form of books or articles may or may not be academic. The production of catalogues of modern coins is kind of a borderline situation. You have to know a lot about the coinage of a given period or region to rationalize it into a catalogue. In many cases, this involves a lot of research, especially for older periods without good archives.
​
​A very recent example of a numismatic study that improved our understanding of modern coinage is the re-classification of the Fugio cents from being a "colonial" coinage to an authentically US Federal coinage.
​
​The contribution of numismatists (who are often historians who use coins as a primary source) is greater for periods where literary documentation is poor or lacking, such as in the ancient world. Thus, if you study the "Military Anarchy" of the third-century Roman Empire, you may know that an emperor called Domitianus (hence Domitian II, given that there is a major emperor of that name who ruled 81-96 CE) is known exclusively because of three coins struck in his name (two of which were actually discovered very recently). By comparison, coins contribute virtually nothing to the historian of the Second World War. Perhaps an economic historian of that period will find coins somewhat useful, but his main documentation is likely to be legislation that was passed to change the composition of coinage to redirect metals like copper to the war effort.
​
​A book that is very affordable and should still be easy to find is Philip Grierson's Numismatics published in 1975. Grierson was one of the great numismatists of the 20th century, specializing in Byzantine coinage.

The people you refer to in the first paragraph are privateers and profiteers, not collectors. IMHO, Collectors are numismatists, because they study and research and value the coin for more than the profit they will receive from it.

discussion above reminds me of book sellers.

Quote: "JRo69"​

Quote: "Camerinvs"​​Whatever dictionaries say, I would never define a coin collector as a numismatist. As a matter of fact, I've seen coin collectors who are actually detrimental to the discipline of Numismatics, e.g. by making up stories about coins (to increase their value), by hoarding coins away from scholars, by acquiring coins on the black market (this is a big one!), etc.

​The people you refer to in the first paragraph are privateers and profiteers, not collectors. IMHO, Collectors are numismatists, because they study and research and value the coin for more than the profit they will receive from it.

​They are not exclusionary categories. Scholars know well how difficult it can be to obtain information from collectors. This is true as well with regard to trying to obtain the right to publish rare manuscripts and printed books from bibliophiles. The philologist or historian doesn't need to own the physical artefact. He/she needs a professionally published edition of these artefacts. In addition, if the artefact is stolen or destroyed during a war, at least its documentary value is largely preserved if it had already been published.

As for the black market of antiquities, including coins, it wouldn't exist without collectors. An antiquity enters the black market because someone sees the potential of a quick profit to be made from the private and illegal sale of artefacts illegally obtained. States have much better laws about the traffic of antiquities than they used to. Antiquities looters are well aware of this but they also know that there are wealthy collectors willing to acquire new artefacts at high prices, so they take the risk. There is also a lot of corruption going on at the local administrative level.

I would consider myself a numismatist in a few specific areas, but not most. For example, I am not a numismatist of Islamic coins, even though I have helped many with deciphering Arabic legends. I am not a numismatist either of German coins, though I collect them because it's quite fascinating to see the changes of political regimes and ideologies reflected in the coins and notes (and even more so in the stamps).

While Modern Numismatics is less useful to the modern historian than Ancient Numismatics is to the ancient historian, still, there are areas where Modern Numismatics could contribute a lot more than it currently does. I believe one such area is how copper/bronze coinage could be studied for a better understanding of the "street economy", especially in the 19th century. Thanks to the mountains of documents now available through the Internet, the possibilities are endless. One doesn't need a physical copy of the documents (coins, books, newspapers, etc.) if they are accessible ("published") online digitally.

By the way, in the latest volume of Roman Imperial Coinage (RIC II³ Hadrian, published 2019), they use several digital collections such as BeastCoins, OCRE, and Wildwinds!

I'd be interested to know what you mean, Mr. Midnight, about these book sellers ...