Michael Alram

Michael Alram is the Director of the Coin Collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna and Vice-President of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. His research focuses on Ancient and Medieval numismatics and monetary history. He extensively worked on the coinage of the Roman Empire, the monetary history of Iran and Central Asia in pre-Islamic times, as well as on Austria ́s monetary history. His ability to reach an audience can be seen is his exhibitions at the Kunsthistorisches Museum and many international exhibition projects.

The Coin Collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna and the Maria Theresa Thaler as International Currency

Coin collections are among the world ́s oldest museum collections. One of them is the coin collection at the Kunsthistorische Museum in Vienna, which evolved out of the collection assembled by the Habsburg dynasty who continued to enlarge and augment it by adding contemporary numismatic objects. Over the centuries the collection ́s holdings grew to around 600,000 artefacts dating from three millenia. Today it is among the five largest and most important coin collections in the world. A special focus of the collection lies in the coin production of the Habsburg ́s themselves. Here the Thaler production of Maria Theresa (1740-1780) is of special interest, since the Maria Theresa Thaler became an international currency which circulated across Africa, Arabia and well beyond.