Notae Numismaticae - Zapiski Numizmatyczne (11.2016)

THE COINS FROM THE FORMER COLLECTION...

part of the coins from Terlecki’s collection in our museum has already been
described, we shall feature in morę detail in the catalogue section only those never
published to datę, while the others will only be mentioned with references to
the relevant publications.
Ignacy Terlecki was bom at Korzec, in Volhynia (present-day: Korets’,
Korets’kii Raion, Rivnens’ka Oblast’, Ukrainę), but from the year 1902 he lived
in Kerch (Kerch, Avtonomna Respublika Krym, Ukrainę), where he worked
as a generał surgeon at a military hospital.3 This professional employment coupled
with the income from his private medical practice allowed him to pursue his
passion for collecting valuable objects, notably ancient coins, Polish coins and
medals, Russian coins, and ancient works of art.4 Following his death in 1916,
his wife, Maria Terlecka, decided to sell a major part of his collections, either
in Crimea or, in the case of the ancient, Polish, and Russian coins and medals,
already after her arrival in Poland in 1919.5 However, some of the items from his
collection had already been sold away to museums or private collectors during
his lifetime, the most striking example being the sale of a large group of coins
through the auction company of the Egger Brothers (Egger Brtider) in 1911.6
The National Museum in Kraków was one of the institutions with which
Ignacy Terlecki established contact in order to sell or exchange some of the coins
in his possession.7 He first came in contact with the museum in 1908, offering
selected items from his collection, which would eventually be obtained by
the museum on 19 December 1908. The entry on that datę in the museunTs Book of
Entries reads: “Received from Mr Terlecki of Kerch, by exchange, Greek artefacts
from excavations in Kerch,” with the following notę in the comments column:
“many objects damaged in shipment due to poor packaging.”8 The information
is complemented with the numbers F.K. 6151-6200.9 An overwhelming majority
of these artefacts were smali lantems, figurines of terracotta, and various items
of pottery. At present, some of them are housed in the Ancient Arts Department
of the National Museum in Kraków.10 This particular assemblage of artefacts

3 SZEMIOTHOWA 1958: 341 f; WALCZAK and KRZYŻANOWSKA 2015; WALCZAK 2016;
cf. BOROVKOVA 1999: 39f; IZBASH-GOTSKAN 2016.
4 Cf. SZEMIOTHOWA 1958: 343.
5 Cf. SZEMIOTHOWA 1958: 341; BOROVKOVA 1999: 95ff; WALCZAK 2016; IZBASH-GOTSKAN
2016.
6 Cf BOROVKOVA 1999: 89-91; IZBASH-GOTSKAN 2016; and esp. WALCZAK 2016.
7 Cf. BODZEK 1997a: 66f; IDEM 2006c: 73, 75; MOCZULSKA 2006: 70; cf. BOROVKOVA 1999: 92f.
8 Book of Entries no. Ł. 3805.
9 The characters F.K. stand for the administrative office of Feliks Kopera (1871-1952), director of
the National Museum in Kraków at the time (1901-1950).
10 Cf. MOCZULSKA 2006: 70. Apart from the above-mentioned objects, the artefacts received
in the same year from Aleksander Sulkiewicz may have also come, as Krystyna Moczulska suggests, from
Terlecki’s collection {Ibidem).