# List of coin collectors

The first coin collector is said to have been Augustus. During the Renaissance, it became a fad among some members of the privileged classes, especially kings and queens.
A coin collector is different from a numismatist, which is someone who studies coins. Many collectors are also numismatists, but some are not. Likewise, not all numismatists collect coins themselves.
| Collector | Born | Died | Notes | Reference |
| Caesar Augustus | 63 BC | 14 AD | According to Suetonius, he gave "coins of every device, including old pieces of the kings and foreign money" as Saturnalia gifts. | |
| Theodora Porphyrogenita | c. 980 | 1056 | Owned a large collection of ancient coins and medals which she kept in custom-made bronze cabinets and happily accepted new additions as presents. | |
| Pope Boniface VIII | 1230 | 1303 | | |
| Giovanni Mansionario | | 1337 | Collected Roman imperial coins | |
| Francesco Petrarch | 1304 | 1374 | Presented some of his Roman coins to Emperor Charles IV | |
| Francesco I da Carrara | 1325 | 1393 | Collected Roman imperial coins | |
| Jean, duc de Berry | 1340 | 1416 | Commissioned copies of the medals in his collection | |
| Alfonso V of Aragon | 1396 | 1458 | Had a collection of ancient coins which had been discovered in Italy; carried them with him in an ivory cabinet | |
| Leonello d'Este | 1407 | 1450 | Collected Greek and Roman coins | |
| Pope Paul II | 1417 | 1471 | Collected ancient coins, and had about a hundred gold and a thousand silver coins; "was able at a glance to tell where an ancient coin came from" | |
| Julius Pomponius Laetus | 1428 | 1498 | | |
| Matthias Corvinus | 1443 | 1490 | | |
| Lorenzo de' Medici | 1449 | 1492 | Purchased coins that had been in Pope Paul II's collection | |
| Maximilian I | 1459 | 1519 | | |
| Guillaume Budé | 1467 | 1540 | Wrote De Asse et Partibus Eius (1514) on Roman coins and measures | |
| Cuthbert Tunstall | 1474 | 1559 | | |
| Ferdinand I | 1503 | 1564 | Collected Roman coins | |
| Joachim II Hector, Elector of Brandenburg | 1505 | 1571 | Established the Berlin Coin Cabinet | |
| Catherine Parr | 1512 | 1548 | | |
| Andrew Perne | 1519 | 1589 | Bequeathed his collection to the Fitzwilliam Museum | |
| Alessandro Farnese | 1520 | 1589 | Owner of the Farnese collection | |
| Albert V, Duke of Bavaria | 1528 | 1579 | Collection is in the Bavarian State Coin Collection | |
| Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria | 1529 | 1595 | The cabinets in which he stored his coins are today kept in the Vienna Coin Cabinet and at Ambras Castle | |
| Abraham Gorlaeus | 1549 | 1608 | His collection of 30,000 coins and medals was purchased by Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales | |
| Wenceslas Cobergher | 1560 | 1634 | Collected Roman coins | |
| Robert Cotton | 1571 | 1631 | Collection is in the British Museum | |
| Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales | 1594 | 1612 | Purchased Abraham Gorlaeus' collection | |
| Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Gotha | 1601 | 1675 | | |
| John Greaves | 1602 | 1652 | Left his coins, "which he had collected in Italy and the East," to Sir John Marsham | |
| Christina, Queen of Sweden | 1626 | 1689 | Had a collection of more than 15,000 coins; marked her coins with a monogram stamp | |
| Louis XIV of France | 1638 | 1715 | Said to have instructed his ambassadors to look out for ancient coins. | |
| Jacob de Wilde | 1645 | 1721 | | |
| Frederick I, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg | 1646 | 1691 | His diaries reveal that he "enjoyed making an inventory of his coins and arranging them in order" | |
| Antoine Galland | 1646 | 1715 | Purchased ancient coins on his visits to the Middle East | |
| Anton Günther II, Count of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen-Arnstadt | 1653 | 1716 | Sold his collection to raise the money needed to become an Imperial Prince | |
| Thomas Herbert, 8th Earl of Pembroke | 1656 | 1733 | Collection auctioned in 1848 with 1500 lots | |
| Hans Sloane | 1660 | 1753 | Collection is in the British Museum | |
| Roger Gale | 1672 | 1744 | Bequeathed his collection to the Fitzwilliam Museum | |
| Richard Mead | 1653 | 1754 | Collection auctioned in 1755 | |
| Frederick II, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg | 1676 | 1732 | Purchased collection of Anton Günther II, Count of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen-Arnstadt | |
| George II of Great Britain | 1683 | 1760 | Purchased Andrew Gifford's collection | |
| William Stukeley | 1687 | 1765 | | |
| Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer | 1689 | 1741 | Collected Greek, Roman and English coins; collection auctioned in 1742 | |
| Joseph Ames | 1689 | 1759 | | |
| Martin Folkes | 1690 | 1754 | Collection auctioned in 1756 | |
| Thomas Martin of Palgrave | 1697 | 1771 | | |
| William Richardson | 1698 | 1775 | Collected British, Roman, and English coins | |
| Andrew Gifford | 1700 | 1784 | Collection purchased by George II | |
| Pieter Teyler van der Hulst | 1702 | 1778 | Collection formed the basis of the Coin and Medal Room of the Teylers Museum | |
| George North | 1707 | 1772 | Collected English coins | |
| Francis I | 1708 | 1765 | His collecting emphasized modern coins | |
| Louis Günther II, Prince of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt | 1708 | 1790 | | |
| Andrew Ducarel | 1713 | 1785 | Collection auctioned in 1785 | |
| Charlotte Sophie of Aldenburg | 1715 | 1800 | Collected Greek and Roman coins | |
| Andrew Eliot | 1718 | 1778 | Collected New England silver coins | |
| William Hunter | 1718 | 1783 | Established the Hunter Coin Cabinet in the University of Glasgow | |
| Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham | 1730 | 1782 | Collected Roman imperial coins | |
| Oluf Gerhard Tychsen | 1734 | 1815 | Wrote Introductio in rem numariam muhammedanorum in 1794, the first scholarly manual of Islamic numismatics | |
| Pierre Eugene du Simitiere | 1737 | 1784 | Collection auctioned in 1785, making it the earliest known coin auction sale in the United States | |
| Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria | 1738 | 1789 | Inherited her love of numismatics from her father, Emperor Francis I | |
| George III of the United Kingdom | 1738 | 1820 | Contributed to the collection in the Hunter Coin Cabinet | |
| Johan Frans Podolyn | 1739 | 1784 | Collection of more than 6000 coins | |
| Thomas Jefferson | 1743 | 1826 | Acquired contemporary European issues through his travels abroad | |
| Sarah Sophia Banks | 1744 | 1818 | Collection shared between the British Museum and the Royal Mint Museum | |
| Kutsuki Masatsuna | 1750 | 1802 | Collection now in the British Museum and the Ashmolean Museum | |
| Jacob Georg Christian Adler | 1756 | 1834 | Collection is in the University of Rostock | |
| John Quincy Adams | 1767 | 1848 | Collection auctioned by the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1971 | |
| Princess Augusta Sophia of the United Kingdom | 1768 | 1840 | Collected English and German coins | |
| John Rushout, 2nd Baron Northwick | 1770 | 1859 | Collected Greek coins | |
| George Robert Ainslie | 1776 | 1839 | Wrote Illustrations of the Anglo-French Coinage in 1830 | |
| William Martin Leake | 1777 | 1860 | Collection purchased for £5,000 in 1864 by the Fitzwilliam Museum | |
| August Otto Rühle von Lilienstern | 1780 | 1847 | Collection is in the Oriental Coin Cabinet Jena | |
| John Doherty | 1785 | 1850 | | |
| Christian VIII of Denmark | 1786 | 1848 | Collection is in the National Museum of Denmark | |
| Joaquín Rubio y Muñoz | 1788 | 1874 | Collection is in the National Museum of Denmark and the National Archaeological Museum of Spain | |
| Caspar Reuvens | 1793 | 1835 | Collection is in the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden | |
| Claude Auguste Court | 1793 | 1880 | One of the first Europeans to become interested in the coins of South Asia | |
| Frédéric Soret | 1795 | 1865 | Collection is in the Oriental Coin Cabinet Jena and the Bavarian State Coin Collection | |
| John Gardner Wilkinson | 1797 | 1875 | Bequeathed his collection to Harrow School | |
| Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer | 1801 | 1888 | Collection is in the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft | |
| Pieter Otto van der Chijs | 1802 | 1867 | Director of the coin cabinet of the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden | |
| Louis Félicien de Saulcy | 1807 | 1880 | Collected Jewish coins obtained during his travels in Palestine; wrote Recherches sur la numismatique judaïque (1854), illustrated with coins from his collection | |
| Ernst Heinrich Meier | 1813 | 1866 | Collection purchased by the University of Tübingen | |
| Edward Clive Bayley | 1821 | 1884 | Collected Indian coins | |
| Hermann Weber | 1823 | 1918 | Collected Greek coins | |
| Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich of Russia | 1827 | 1892 | Collected Russian coins | |
| Byron Reed | 1829 | 1891 | Bequeathed his collection to the city of Omaha, where it resides in the Durham Museum | |
| Adriaan Justus Enschedé | 1829 | 1896 | Bequeathed his collection to the Teylers Museum | |
| Emily Bayley | 1830 | 1911 | Collection of Indian copper coins is in the British Museum | |
| Georg Bühler | 1837 | 1898 | Collection is in the Bode Museum | |
| Frank John Joseph | 1838 | 1895 | Reportedly had one of the finest private collections of coins and medals in North America, worth an estimated $30000 at his death | |
| José Gerson da Cunha | 1844 | 1900 | Collection included more than 27,000 pieces | |
| Prince Philipp of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha | 1844 | 1921 | Collection auctioned in 1928 | |
| Gustave Schlumberger | 1844 | 1929 | Collected Crusader coins | |
| Samuel Mills Damon | 1845 | 1924 | Collection auctioned in 2006 for $3.9 million | |
| Robert Wallace McLachlan | 1845 | 1926 | The "Dean" of Canadian numismatics and VP of American Numismatic Association. Collection acquired by Chateau de Ramezay in Montreal and later most of it by Bank of Canada Museum | |
| Samuel Jean de Pozzi | 1846 | 1918 | Collection auctioned in 1921 | |
| Gerald Ephraim Hart | 1849 | 1936 | Formed several outstanding collections of Canadian coins, tokens, medals, books and historical documents prior to 1900 | |
| Francis W. Doughty | 1850 | 1917 | Collection auctioned in 1891 with 1539 lots | |
| Heinrich von Siebold | 1852 | 1908 | Collection is in the Oriental Coin Cabinet Jena | |
| Lars Emil Bruun | 1852 | 1923 | Most valuable collection of world coins and medals insured for $72,550,000 | |
| Eduard Glaser | 1855 | 1908 | Collection is in the Bode Museum | |
| Ivan Ivanovich Tolstoy | 1858 | 1916 | Collection auctioned in 1913 | |
| George Hubbard Clapp | 1858 | 1949 | Donated collection of 1543 large cents to the American Numismatic Society | |
| Milan Rešetar | 1860 | 1942 | Inherited and expanded his father's coin collection; wrote the two-volume Dubrovačka numizmatika | |
| Henry A. Greene | 1861 | 1950 | Collection of Greek coins purchased by the Rhode Island School of Design Museum in 1940 | |
| Grand Duke George Mikhailovich of Russia | 1863 | 1919 | Portion of collection is in the Smithsonian Institution | |
| Ernest Robinson Ackerman | 1863 | 1931 | Collection auctioned in 1931 | |
| Frederick Parkes Weber | 1863 | 1962 | Inherited an interest in coin collecting from his father, Sir Hermann Weber | |
| William A. Ashbrook | 1867 | 1940 | Majority of his collection stolen in 1919 | |
| William H. Woodin | 1868 | 1934 | Collected pattern coins | |
| Edward Howland Robinson Green | 1868 | 1936 | Owned a Brasher Doubloon; at the time of his death, his collection was worth an estimated $5 million | |
| Edgar Adams | 1868 | 1940 | Editor of The Numismatist | |
| Victor Emmanuel III of Italy | 1869 | 1947 | Collection of over 100,000 coins is in the National Museum of Rome; also wrote a 20-volume Corpus Nummorum Italicorum, which catalogued each specimen in his collection. | |
| William Walter Coulthard Wilson | 1869 | 1924 | VP of American Numismatic Association, donated The Numismatist to A.N.A. and had one of the two finest collections of Canadian coins | |
| Farran Zerbe | 1871 | 1949 | President of the American Numismatic Association from 1908 to 1910. | |
| Enrico Caruso | 1873 | 1921 | Collection auctioned in 1923 | |
| John Abner Snell | 1880 | 1936 | Collection of Chinese coins auctioned in 2011 | |
| Eduard Kann | 1880 | 1962 | Austrian banker who went to work in China in 1901. Author of the first systematic catalog of Chinese coinage 'Illustrated catalog of Chinese coins (gold, silver, nickel and aluminium)' . Collection auctioned in 1970s and in 2000. | |
| Frank Stenton | 1880 | 1967 | Collection is at the University of Reading | |
| Herbert Ives | 1882 | 1953 | Served as president of the American Numismatic Society | |
| Arthur W. Hummel, Sr. | 1884 | 1975 | Passed collection of Chinese coins on to his son Arthur W. Hummel, Jr. | |
| Jerome Kern | 1885 | 1945 | Collection auctioned in 1950 | |
| Francis Spellman | 1889 | 1967 | | |
| Adolphe Menjou | 1890 | 1963 | Collection auctioned in 1957 | |
| Lincoln Fitzgerald | 1892 | 1981 | Among the items in Fitzgerald Hoard were casino chips and 100,000 American silver dollars | |
| Josiah K. Lilly Jr. | 1893 | 1966 | Collection of 6125 gold coins donated to the Smithsonian Institution | |
| Louis E. Eliasberg | 1896 | 1976 | Put together the only complete collection of United States coins ever assembled | |
| LaVere Redfield | 1897 | 1974 | His collection (Redfield Hoard) consisted of over 407,000 silver dollar coins which weighed 12 tons | |
| Robert L. Hendershott | 1898 | 2005 | | |
| J. Hewitt Judd | 1899 | 1986 | Collected United States pattern coins | |
| Joseph Douglas Ferguson | 1901 | 1981 | First Canadian to be President of American Numismatic Association, Honorary President of C.N.A. and had the finest collection of Canadian tokens, coins and currency, purchased by Bank of Canada Museum in 1963 and medals at the Glenbow Museum | |
| Richard S. Yeoman | 1904 | 1988 | Wrote A Guide Book of United States Coins | |
| Oscar H. Dodson | 1905 | 1996 | Kept a collection of ancient Greek coins with him while serving on board the USS Hornet in 1942 | |
| Keith Bullen | 1906 | 1976 | | |
| Buddy Ebsen | 1908 | 2003 | Owned a $4 Stella; co-founded the Beverly Hills Coin Club | |
| Philip Grierson | 1910 | 2006 | Bequeathed his collection of medieval coins to the Fitzwilliam Museum | |
| Arne E. Holm | 1911 | 2009 | Collection is in the NTNU Museum of Natural History and Archaeology | |
| Eric P. Newman | 1911 | 2017 | Collection sold over five auctions in 2013–2014 for almost $55 million | |
| John Jay Pittman | 1913 | 1996 | President of A.N.A. 1971-73 and C.N.A., massive collection of high-quality US and World gold and silver coins sold by David Akers in auctions from 1997 to 1999 | |
| Farouk I of Egypt | 1920 | 1965 | Collection included a 1933 double eagle, and was sold by auction for a fraction of its real value in 1954 after Farouk's overthrow | |
| Arthur W. Hummel, Jr. | 1920 | 2001 | Inherited collection of Chinese coins from his father Arthur W. Hummel, Sr. | |
| Mark Hatfield | 1922 | 2011 | | |
| Chris Schenkel | 1923 | 2005 | Collection auctioned in 1990 with 3404 lots | |
| Chester Krause | 1923 | 2016 | Started collecting when his aunts gave him some Whitman coin boards. |
| Zollie Kelman | 1926 | 2008 | Created the Great Montana Collection | |
| Russell Rulau | 1926 | 2012 | Coined the term "exonumia" | |
| Nelson Bunker Hunt | 1926 | 2014 | Collected Greek and Roman coins; collection auctioned off in 1990 and 1991 as a result of his bankruptcy | |
| Jerome Remick | 1928 | 2005 | Edited The Guide Book and Catalogue of the British Commonwealth Coins; established the Royal Canadian Numismatic Association's Jerome H. Remick III Literary Award in 1995 | |
| Harry W. Bass, Jr. | 1927 | 1998 | Collection resides in the American Numismatic Association Money Museum | |
| Kenneth Bressett | 1928 | | Collects Chinese and Japanese coins as well as ancient Greek silver coins | |
| David Gee | 1929 | 2013 | Collected Australian coins | |
| William Herbert Hunt | 1929 | 2024 | Collected Byzantine coins; collection auctioned off in 1990 and 1991 as a result of his bankruptcy | |
| Johnny Cash | 1932 | 2003 | Collected Greek and Roman coins | |
| John V. M. Sturdy | 1933 | 1996 | 1,751 twentieth-century world coins from his collection were donated to the Fitzwilliam Museum | |
| Jerry Buss | 1933 | 2013 | Owned a 1913 Liberty Head nickel and an 1804 dollar | |
| Q. David Bowers | 1938 | | Began collecting at age 13 and became a coin dealer at age 14 | |
| Walter J. Husak | 1942 | 2022 | Collection of 301 large cents auctioned in 2008 for $10.7 million | |
| Ted Binion | 1943 | 1998 | Binion had had a 12-foot-deep vault built on the desert floor to house the Binion Hoard on a piece of property he owned in Pahrump, 60 miles (97 km) west of Las Vegas. The concrete bunker contained six tons of silver bullion, Horseshoe casino chips, paper currency, and more than 100,000 rare coins | |
| Gregg Bingham | 1951 | | Owned an extensive collection of commemorative half dollars and a complete collection of Morgan dollars | |
| Andre Dawson | 1954 | | Collection auctioned in 1998 for over $6 million | |
| Jo Nambiar | 1961 | | As an antique collector and numismatist, Nambiar has one of the largest collections of ancient coins and rare currencies in India. It is an asset that the Reserve Bank of India recognizes and borrows from for its annual “Coins and Currencies” exhibition | [143] [144] |
| Paul Hollis | 1972 | | Began collecting at the age of six | |