The North Black Sea Collection of Dr Ignacy Terlecki. The Coinage of Bosporan Cities and Chersonesus
The North Black Sea Collection of Dr Ignacy Terlecki. The Coinage of Bosporan Cities and Chersonesus

Summary/Abstract: The article is concerned with the coin collector Ignacy Terlecki and the origin, history, and present state of his collection. Dr Ignacy Terlecki was a military surgeon in Kerch, Crimea, in the early 20th century. It was there that he began to collect coins from ancient Greek colonies and ones issued by rulers of that region. He found such coins on his own or purchased them from local residents or antiquarians, which eventually lead to the creation of an extensive collection representative of the majority of the coinage from the northern coast of the Black Sea, a collection that is regarded as unique by contemporary numismatists. It comprised coins from Greek colonies (Olbia, Chersonesus, and the cities of the Bosporan Kingdom, especially Panticapaeum) as well as the coinage of the Bosporan rulers. After the doctor’s death, his family, by this time already in Poland, made an offer to the National Museum in Warsaw, resulting in the purchase of the collection by the museum in the years 1925 and 1930. Despite the loss, during World War II, of the most precious specimens, notably gold and electrum coins, this collection continues to be the best collection in Poland and one of the best in Europe, representing the entire spectrum of ancient coinage from the North Black Sea region, from the beginning of its existence in the 6th century BC until as late as the end of the coinage of the Bosporan state in the 4th century AD, also including some later Byzantine coins from Chersonesus. Further on, the article briefly presents the results of the work on the recreation of the original collection as based on one of the catalogue manuscripts by Władysław Terlecki from before World War II. Table 2 specifies in detail of the wartime losses and the current contents of the collection.

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