Freiburg, Seminar für Alte Geschichte der Universität
The Seminar of Ancient History holds more than 12,000 coins of the Roman Imperial period and Late Antiquity. Their majority originates from a collection which Herbert Nesselhaus, the former Professor of Ancient History, was able to purchase in 1961 from the Archbishopric of Freiburg. The collection had found a temporary home there some twenty years earlier: Between 1900 and 1926 the Geheimer Oberbaurat Heinrich Wefels from Erlangen built a collection of c. 14,000 coins, which he had acquired at various auctions. About 10,300 are coins of Roman emperors and an additional 2,400 represent provincial issues. Wefels focussed on the Imperial period, but did add both earlier and later coinages, too. About 950 Byzantine coins, 360 Roman Republican ones, 220 Greek issues, and 22 Celic coins bear witness to these secondary areas of interest. Although the Seminar für Alte Geschichte is not any longer able to purchase additional coins, its collection was augmented through generous donations by Herbert A. Cahn, Otto Feld and Gerold Walser. Today the collection is complemented by a scientific numismatic library, which again originates in the collector Heinrich Wefels.