NNP

Scanning of the ANS Curator (Howland Wood) correspondence, covering the period 1913-1937, continues apace under the sponsorship of the Newman Numismatic Portal. Correspondents through the letters A-P are now processed. A recently scanned file details a traveling exhibit mounted by the ANS in the 1920s. Curator Wood explained in correspondence to the Smithsonian on November 22, 1926:

“This exhibit is of coins and tends to show the development of coinage from its inception, about 750 B.C., to the present days. It is arranged by centuries, ten coins to a row (or century), 260 coins in all, and if laid out with plenty of room will occupy about twenty square feet. Labels have been printed in two colors: master labels for the exhibit, labels for each century, and individual placards under each coin.”

The exhibit debuted at the Worcester Art Museum in the fall of 1926, followed by the John Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis. Wood was careful to instruct numismatically uninitiated museum personnel “The coins, of course, must not be fastened down with nails or stuck down.” The exhibit then went to the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY, The Dayton Art Institute, the Denver Art Museum, the St. Louis City Art Museum, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Carnegie Museum, and finally to the Utica Public Library. Insurance was apparently provided by the Robert M. Coyle insurance company, which quoted coverage at 2% of the exhibit value, a remarkably low number given the extensive amount of shipping and packing involved. 

Link to ANS Exhibit correspondence file: https://archive.org/details/ansnumismatictra00amer
Link to Howland Wood correspondence: https://archive.org/details/americannumismaticsociety?tab=collection&query=Howland&sort=-publicdate