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The Wronker Virtual Museum of Printing Medals
Dedicated to the collector ERICH WRONKER (1921-1996) by his wife Lili Cassel Wronker.

Erich Wronker assembled one of the most significant collections of medals relating to printing in the world. This web site features the highlights from this collection, which is now in the Cary Collection of the Rochester Institute of Technology. You can see some photographs of medals there at Selections from the Printing Medal Collection of Erich Wronker.

This objective of this web site is to present as much factual information as possible about printing medals and coins, using the Erich Wronker collection as its foundation. A secondary objective is to document this subset of the iconography of printing, indexed by content and purpose.

How to Use this Virtual Museum / Wiki


To see a list of all the items in this Virtual Museum, view the Category: Coin_Detail_Page.

To get to details on the medals on this web site, you can:


 * 1) use the search to look for the subject, a word on the coin, or other associated topic (the search box is in the left-hand-side navigation of every page), then click on the medal you want
 * 2) browse a category of interest to you: the list of all categories is at Category: Categories; when you click on a category you'll see the medals in it, then you can select a specific medal
 * 3) browse the list of all items in this virtual museum at Category: Coin_Detail_Page and click on the medal that interests you

In many cases, a higher resolution image is available - click on any image to see resolutions available.

We are using a wiki tool to do this because we believe that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. The disadvantages are obvious: little control over the look and feel of the site means that the design is simple and inflexible. The advantages are that it is easy for authorized users to update the information as new data become available.

As a wiki tool, authorized contributors can edit and add material at any time:
 * translations if they know the language used on the medal
 * different images if they have access to a medal and the right equipment
 * additional facts that aren't obvious if they have reference works not yet reviewed

This is an evolving web site - with expert contributors making it better with new content and commentary. To become part of this project and contribute your own content, please send a message with your interest and your credentials to [mailto:curator@printingmedals.org?Subject=I%20am%20Interested%20in%20Becoming%20A%20Part%20of%20The%20Virtual%20Museum%20of%20Printing%20Medals the Curator of PrintingMedals.org]. We are especially interested in adding information for medals that are as of yet only scantily described - as well as adding new medals, from the Cary Collection and elsewhere.

Background
“Much of printing history has been depicted on medals, coins, tokens, and badges created to commemorate printers, publishers, typographers, presses, libraries, guilds and associations, newspapers, freedom of the press, anniversaries and jubilees, and various awards. These items are made of any of several materials, including gold, silver, copper, bronze, lead, iron, tin, porcelain, and leather. A collection of printers’ medals is interesting not only because it offers a visual record of great individuals and events in printing history, but also because the very art of making medals is closely connected with printing's origins.” (Erich Wronker)



Lili and Erich were the proprietors of the Ron Press, a private press operated from their home in New York.

For background to the collection, read Erich Wronker’s On Collecting Printing Medals.

What is a Coin?

Terminology

References

Credits

Much information in this wiki has been derived from the books by Blades and Jehne (see References) - the Blades numbering system is listed in the Blades Checklist.