The Great Numismatic Collectio

The history of the national numismatic collections of the old imperial or, at least, multinational capitals on the Baltic, Copenhagen, Stockholm and St.Petersburg, have a number of characteristics in common. They all grew from Royal collections formed in the 18th century, in some cases even in the 17th century, and they gradually integrated various aristocratic and bourgeois collections. Due to important social and economic changes in the Russian society, this development continued in St. Petersburg till the middle of the 20th century, while focus in both Copenhagen and Stockholm gradually was centred on finds and hoards from the native soil. In the 19th and especially the 20th century all three collections developed into important research institutions, the Stockholm collection being since the 1950's an international centre for the study of Viking Age coinage from Central Asia and Northern Europe.