Page 14 - Peus Nachf. Katalog 431

A personal view from his wife and daughter

In his private life, ancient coins were always present in the background. However, it was never a
hobby in the usual sense – whether the coins were looked at or displayed, it was always in the sense
of a serious historical endeavour. Underneath the coins were small slips of paper with exact descrip-
tions in tiny but still clearly legible print. The daughter recalls, „Dad once told me never to call him a
numismatist. He was not. I did not understand the term at the time, however, when I asked him what
to call someone who collects old money, he recommended that I call him a coin collector. When we
talked about our parents, my schoolmates looked at me without understanding when I said: „My dad
is a library director and coin collector.“ I couldn‘t ‚score‘ points with that, but that wasn‘t important.“
When she was studying Greek in the lower secondary at the Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster, her
father taught her the Greek letters by means of the coin transcriptions, which left a deep impression.
He had bought his first coin as a schoolboy; his Latin teacher at the Beethoven Gymnasium in Bonn,
where he graduated from high school in 9 8, had awakened an interest in him. Until the 970s, as a
student and early in his career, he had few resources, but things got better after the 980s. There was
no coin trade in Berlin during and after the fall of the Berlin Wall; the only opportunity was the coin
fairs at the TV tower and other places, where a Berlin-based dealer (without an own establishment)
appeared and which was visited by coin dealers from outside the city. That is why he took numerous
coin trips and participated in auctions elsewhere. After retirement, he began the actual scientific
processing of his ever-growing collection, which was carried out with the usual care and accuracy: per
coin a form filled out tightly in tiny type, which was written by me into the PC, proofread by him and
corrected by me again in the PC. The daughter: „When dad showed me coins and explained them, I
could feel how the coins he possessed or the ones he was „after“ (that was how he expressed himself)
gave him a sense of fulfilment. In the process, he showed me their splendour and magnificent aura.
It makes me happy that my father‘s collection is now published in an own catalogue. That‘s what he
worked for, that was his last big goal as I remember it.“
Dr. Doris Fouquet-Plümacher and Johanna Bensch

Eckhard Plümacher was not only at home in the ancient world, he was also intimately familiar with the numismatic landscape. He
knew and appreciated the great collections, whether public or private, and was in exchange with the research community. In order to
capture all this, we have given colleagues the opportunity to contribute with further facets of the collector:

„Shortly after I started my own business as a coin dealer, we met at the Numismata trade fair in Berlin in No-
vember 000. A well-dressed gentleman in suit and tie, a mischievous smile on his face, he looked, very bright-
eyed, at my small selection of ancient coins and decided to buy (two denarii: the L. Censorinus [lot 7 ] and the
Balbinus [lot 8]: he was my invoice no. . Thus began a business relationship that over the years evolved into
something very special. And so I began to understand how the collection became what we see before us today:
The whole spectrum of Greek-Roman antiquity is represented in this coin collection and this is not surprising,
since he had already chosen ancient historiography in the context of the Acts of the Apostles for his dissertation
and then devoted his entire scientific work to this focus.
The coins show an insight into the diverse coinage of almost 000 years from the th century BC to the th
century AD: coines of various cities, dynasts, satraps and kings in pre-Christian times, many mint masters and
emperors of the Roman Republic, up to emperors, Caesars and empresses of the Roman Empire. The denomi-
nations in any size and material: from the litra to the silver stater, from the trihemiobol to the decadrachm, from
the quinarius to the antoninianus, and finally from the quadrans to the sestertius, as well as gold staters and aurei,
and many more. The preservation of the coins is outstanding, although not all pieces can be called excellent;
however, they are very appealing with a beautiful toning or good patina and aesthetically pleasing, mostly are well
centred with legible legends. It was not only the history of the coin – i.e. where and when, in which historical
context and with which propagandistic background it was minted – that interested E. Plümacher, but he was
equally fascinated in the history of the coin, from its minting and the time of its circulation up to the moment
he acquired it.
Thus, he was equally fascinated by the history of the d‘Este family on a Dupondius of Augustus (lot 7) or
the origin of the early tetradrachm of Syracuse from the Hermitage in St. Petersburg (lot 0 ). He was