ANA Museum Curator lends hands to Nevada State Museum at Carson City Mint
American Numismatic Association (ANA) Money Museum Curator Lawrence Lee visited the Nevada State Museum and is assisting in the development of its numismatic exhibits.
“The staff at the Nevada museum, which is in the old Carson City Mint building, is creating new exhibits that will emphasize the history of the minting and mining that helped in developing the state,” says Lee, who was invited to deliver the museum’s keynote Bretzlaff Lecture earlier this month and spend several days in the Nevada capital reviewing plans and offering advice. “We discussed the goal and look of the exhibits, evaluated the current collection, and surveyed the overall museum. When completed, it will be an ideal destination for not only the casual visitor but serious numismatists as well.”
Opened in 1870 to handle the gold and silver extracted from Nevada mines, the United States branch mint struck coins, on and off, for more than 20 years. It later served as an assay office before it ceased all operations in 1933. The Nevada State Museum is a division of the state’s Department of Cultural Affairs, which “serves and enriches the lives of Nevada’s citizens and visitors.”
Robert A. Nylen and Sue Ann Monteleone, curator and registrar, respectively, of the Nevada State Museum, have taken “Numismatics for the Museum Professional” at the ANA Summer Seminar in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The museum’s exhibits coordinator, Ray Geiser, plans to take the class next summer. Taught by Lee and Douglas Mudd, collection manager for the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution, the week-long course guides museum professionals who are unfamiliar with numismatic material in the attribution, cataloging, handling, storage, interpretation and mounting of such specimens. Officials at the Nevada museum also are considering hosting a special, on-site ANA seminar for their entire staff.
Funded by the Bretzlaff Foundation Fund, a philanthropic organization that promotes cultural programs in northern Nevada, Lee’s address marked the first time the foundation’s focus was on numismatics. His Bretzlaff address coincided with the annual Carson City Mint Coin Show, and was taped for airing on cable access television in Reno, Carson City and other northern Nevada communities.
“I am honored to be invited to participate in this project and help spread the good name of the ANA,” Lee says.
For more information about the class for museum professionals or other classes offered at the American Numismatic Association’s 36th Annual Summer Seminar, June 26-July 1 and July 3-8, contact the ANA Education Department, 818 N. Cascade Ave., Colorado Springs, CO 80903-3279; phone 719-632-2646; fax 719-634-4085; or e-mail education@money.org.
Originally Release Date: September 23, 2003
ANA Contacts: Phone: 719-482-9872
Email: pr@money.org