Coin Collection

In Schocken’s later years, when he frequently traveled between America and Israel, he began collecting ancient coins, the most valuable of which he carried on his person. He collected ancient Jewish coins from the days of the Maccabees and silver coins from Yemen. One coin, stamped with the image of Alexander the Great, was one of only three extant copies.

The numismatist Edward Gans, a former Berlin banker, recalled meeting Schocken in 1951, in New York: “I received a telephone call from a Mr. Salman Schocken, who asked whether he could see my coins… Among my coin stock was only one which excited his curiosity, and which, indeed, was not only a very interesting Greek coin, but also a particularly well-preserved and beautiful one. It was a tetradrachm of Demetrius Poliorcetes (the city destroyer), King of Macedon, 337 to 283 B.C., which, on the reverse side, had a relief of Nike blowing a horn and standing on a ship’s prow. It was generally assumed that the coin’s theme was a copy of the famous bronze statue in the Louvre, called the Nike of Samothrace; or conversely, that the statue was a copy of the coin… It was the finest specimen I had ever seen. When closing the final deal, we had already become a bit more familiar, and Mr. Schocken told me that he loved coins and that he always carried a few with him. Out of his pocket he pulled a little leather and velvet box containing perhaps a dozen coins, in the center of which was the famous dekadrachm made by the master engraver Kimon.”

(During the time of Dionysius I, circa 405 – 367 BC, a beautiful series of large silver coins were introduced at Syracuse, the chief city of Sicily. They are considered to be among the great artistic masterpieces of ancient coinage. These coins, called dekadrachm, were equal to 10 drachms of the Attic weight standard, roughly 4.3 grams, and as such weighed about 43 grams. The dekadrachm of Syracuse were struck with dies prepared by master Sicilian engravers, pocket-sized examples of a pinnacle of ancient Greek art. The most beautiful coins were made by an engraver named Kimon, who was proud enough of his work that he occasionally signed his dies).