page_title: Grand Duke George Mikhailovich of Russia (1863–1919)
section_title: Coin collection
hierarchical_section_title: Grand Duke George Mikhailovich of Russia (1863–1919) / Coin collection
caption_attribution_description: English: A Romanov gathering during the reign of Tsar Nicholas II
context_page_description: Grand Duke George Mikhailovich of Russia was a son of Grand Duke Michael Nikolaevich of Russia and a first cousin of Emperor Alexander III. He was a General in the Russian army in World War I. During the Russian Revolution, he was imprisoned by the Bolsheviks and shot by a firing squad, along with his brother, Grand Duke Nicholas Mikhailovich, and his cousins Grand Dukes Paul Alexandrovich and Dmitry Konstantinovich.
context_section_description: Numismatics was his all-absorbing interest from an early age. Through the years, he accumulated the finest and largest collection of Russian coins and medals, which included practically every coin ever used in the Russian Empire.  He wrote ten monographs on the subject, among them:  Catalogue of Imperial Russian Coins 1725–1891, a book reprinted in the USA in 1976, that even today, is an important reference on the subject.  When George Mikhailovich was appointed director of the newly founded Alexander III Museum in 1895, the grand duke proceeded to devote all his knowledge and influence to increasing the museum's numismatic collection with rare pieces or entire collections, such as the post-1700 Russian section of the collection of Count Emeryk Hutten-Czapski. In 1909, he donated his own collection to the Alexander III Museum, which was used as part of a massive work by a group of noted Russian scholars sponsored, and contributed to, by the grand duke.
  The upheavals of World War I caused the worried grand duke to have his collection crated and stored at the State Loan Bank in Saint Petersburg for safekeeping. During the Revolution, four of the five crates were smuggled out of the country under mysterious circumstances. Part of the collection was stolen in the West, but the grand duke’s widow did receive most of it.  The coins eventually made their way from Yugoslavia to the National Numismatic Collection in Washington, D.C. via Rome, New York, and Berkeley. This large and unique collection has resided in the Smithsonian Institution since the 1950s. More than 10,000 Russian coins and 1,250 medals form part of the collection George Mikhailovich once owned.
caption: A Romanov gathering. From left to right: Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, the elder, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, Grand Duke Michael Nikolaevich, Grand Duke George Mikhailovich and Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich.
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