Degrees In Numismatics

Vienna University has a numismatics department.....I believe they still prefer you to have language skills in Latin and ancient greek

Here's one old thread on the subject.

Degrees specializing in numismatics are scarce and obviously only for very serious numismatists, not just for your average coin collector or coin dealer. Most of the degrees you could find, especially from European institutions, will be oriented towards ancient and mediaeval coins.

If you do any kind of archaeology degree (again, mainly European-oriented), they're going to cover the study of coinage to some depth, because coins provide very useful dating evidence.

Now that is an interesting question. I've heard of so many college degrees on stuff like Basket Weaving, Tennis, Photography, computers, Auto repairing and on and on and on. So why not a college set up for Hobbies? A degree in Coins, Stamps, etc. I'd bet such a place would get filled fast. On TV there are so many colleges, Universities, miscellaneous educational institutes, so why not one for Hobbies? They could have classes on model building, coins, stamps, trains and so many more.

Thank you Austrokiwi. I'm proud to be an American, but sometimes Americans need a reality check. All to often, in my culture, one can be an expert by choosing to be an expert, and not by earning the right to be called expert.

Romanes eunt domus?




Well, the debt ill incure (even doing a STEM Subject) getting my degree is over 12 years at my current annual salary (well, I am part time, but still). Put simply, if I'm going to spend such ridiculous sums of money, I'm going to make sure I get an actual usable degree at the end (for example, no-one hires someone with a degree in Forensics when they could hire someone with a degree in Chemistry).

Perhaps 'Degree' means something else in America? I mean, design-a-degree seems pretty suspect, and I fail to see how you could possibly get a degree in basket weaving. How would you stretch it out into 3 years? Indigenous peoples do it without spending years studying it. What is the system?

Oddly enough in the USA a degree is very, very important ion most buisnesses. One place I used to work had a company newspaper. In it they constantly bragged about the quantity of degreed people in their emply. And they even noted the different types such as Associate, Bachlers, Masters and Doctorates. This company newspaper was distributed to many clients and prospective clients.
Another place I worked went as far as false stating people with degrees that worked there and only paid them to allow the use of their names and degrees.
I've heard many clients request such info from organizatioins and actually believe a company with a lot of degreed people is the place for their projects.
I do think degrees in subjects like Numismatics would accomplish little in the way of getting a job though.

George Brown College used to have a numismatics program. I would've maybe taken it but I was looking at the last year they did it, but I'm 100% sure that going to school for coins would've sucked the fun out of it. You don't need a degree to be a collector or a dealer.

Well in that older thread, SAP posted that Donald Kagin was the first to receive a Ph.D. in numismatics, I came here to say that, but he already did. Don's father Art was one of my main mentors in the coin business as I was coming up the ranks in the early to mid 1980's a giant of a man in the business, it sure didn't surprise me at all that his son followed in his footsteps and went as far as getting a degree in numismatics. Chip off the old block! Don is a nice guy that has a very broad grasp of all subjects relating to numismatics, he specializes in territorial gold, and is currently handling the famous "Saddle Ridge Hoard" of recently discovered gold coins from Northern California.

I have often thought of going after the ANA degree, but just haven't had the time to devote to it the way I know I should. Perhaps in the near future I will tackle it. Thanks for the link to your experience MrMorgan! Maybe I do have the time after all.