“Numismatic” comes from the French word “numismatique,” which developed in Latin from the Greek word “nomisma” (“current coin”). The National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History is thought to be the world’s largest collection of money and transactional objects, totaling roughly 1.6 million objects. The collection, which started with a few thousand items in the mid-19th century, spans more than three millennia and represents every inhabited continent. It’s grown to its impressive current size through donations from private collectors and public institutions.