Chase Manhattan Bank Money Museum, Currency museum at Rockefeller Center, Manhattan, United States.
The Chase Manhattan Bank Money Museum was a banking institution's museum in New York dedicated to the history and variety of currency. The exhibition presented ancient coins, paper money, wampum, and international currencies from different time periods and regions.
The museum began in 1928 when Chase National Bank acquired a collection from numismatist Farran Zerbe, who became its first curator. Over decades the collection expanded, making it an important institution for the study of money history, before closing in 1977.
The collection displayed wampum and currency from different cultures, showing how people around the world developed various forms of exchange. Visitors could see how money and value held different meanings across societies.
The museum organized traveling exhibitions that circulated through various bank branches in New York, bringing the collections to different audiences. These mobile displays made it easier for people to understand the cultural and economic significance of currency in everyday life.
The collection included a massive stone coin from Yap Island, showing how people there defined value in a completely different way. The museum also owned rare items such as a check written on a silk parachute and another one punctured with a submachine gun.
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