Notae Numismaticae - Zapiski Numizmatyczne (11.2016)

THE COINS FROM THE FOR MER COLLECTION...

name at approximately the same time, both of whom were offering to sell ancient
coins and artefacts to the National Museum in Kraków, would have been an as-
tonishing coincidence indeed. It is also possible that Ignacy Terlecki possessed
some other ancient coins which were not strictly within the rangę of his interests as
a coin collector.24 Perhaps for this reason he was all the morę willing to sell such
pieces.25 The basie difficulty in this case is the absence of any mention of the ac-
ąuisition of these coins in the museunTs archival documentation and the museum
administration’s printed report for the year 1909.26 It must be stressed, however,
that the museum archives had been partly destroyed during the Second World War
and that the 1909 annual report of the board of directors was very much focused
on the 25th anniversary of the National Museum.27 It would not be far-fetched
to cautiously hypothesize that Ignacy Terlecki, perhaps encouraged by the result
of the previous transaction, contacted the museum again in 1909 and offered
to sell a smali group of ancient coins. This hypothesis still needs a morę solid
and conclusive source-based confirmation of the identity of the person who madę
the offer as well as confirmation of the morę precise identification of the obtained
pieces.
The last pre-World War II episode in the history of the relationship between
Dr Ignacy Terlecki’s collection and the National Museum in Kraków was the offer
submitted by his son Władysław Terlecki.28 In a letter dated 5 February 1925 and
addressed to the “Directors of the Count E. Czapski Museum in Kraków,” he madę
“a proposal to sell a collection of coins from the Greek colonies on the northem
coast of the Black Sea.” Władysław Terlecki explicitly stated the provenance
(“The above-named collection was created by the Late Dr Ignacy Terlecki”)
and the ąuality of the collection (“Due to the large amount of coins and its good
representative value, it is one of the best among the existing collections of this
kind”). At the same time, he stated, though rather inaccurately, the materiał value
of the collection: “The price of the collection, should it be purchased, could be set
at some tens of thousands of Polish zlotys.” Also enclosed was a list of 815 coins
in total: of Pantikapaion (297), Olbia (230), Chersonesos (141), Fanagoria (77),

2,1 Let us recall that Ignacy Terlecki was in possession of collections of Polish and Russian coins
(cf. SZEMIOTHOWA 1958: 343). It is therefore possible that he might have owned some ancient coins from
locations other than the Black Sea region.
25 It seems that this is how it should be eventually interpreted in the light of the aforementioned annotation
on the card: “acąuired from Mr Terlecki of Kerch (in exchange for old print duplicates).”
26 KOPERA 1910. A large part of the publication (pp. 3-15, 16-32) is taken up by an account
of the events connected with the anniversary celebration and the “National Museum on the Wawel Hill”
programme. Nonetheless, the most significant donations and acąuisitions are featured there as well
(pp. 15,40-51).
27 For the wartime history of the National Museum in Kraków, see BŁOŃSKA 2014.
28 Book of Entries no. 10981.