29 September 2022
Coins galore!
We recently undertook maintenance on our Hallaton Treasure coin displays at Harborough Museum, Market Harborough and thought it would be a good opportunity to give a behind the scenes glimpse of how we create our impressive coin stacks.
Hallaton Treasure gallery coin display including the 'coin cake stand'.
Stacks of coins
Coin stack from behind showing the Plastazote® mound into which the coins are carefully positioned.
The coins are carefully arranged on the stacks and they tend to stay put!
On entering the Hallaton Treasure gallery visitors are wowed by the sheer number of sparkling silver and gold coins discovered at a Late Iron Age ritual site at Hallaton. Over 5300 Iron Age and Roman coins were found buried in 13 hoards and amongst other deposits of precious goods dating mostly from the 1st century AD.
Recent maintenance work required us to empty the case and so our bespoke acrylic mount, affectionately known as the 'coin cake stand', which holds hundreds of coins was carefully removed as well as the 13 coin stacks representing the hoards. Luckily for us the coin stacks are not all what they seem!
Rather than merely being piles of coins, some of them are inserted into slits in a Plastazote® (an inert foam suitable for museum objects) cone and then other coins are carefully placed on top to make an impressive mound. As Iron Age coins are very small, when actually piled up the stacks aren't really very large at all!
Each coin has been photographed, measured and weighed and has an individual accession number so it is possible to find a specific coin within the stacks. Although it would take a little time depending on the size of the hoard.
Read more about the Hallaton coins and get your (digital!) hands-on a wonderful 3D scan of an Iron Age gold coin on the Harborough Museum website.