BUFFALO, NEW YORK—Classicist Philip Kiernan of The State University of New York at Buffalo heard a rumor that there were Greek and Roman coins housed in the archives at the school’s libraries. Three years later he found the 40 silver Greek coins, three gold Greek coins, and a dozen Roman gold coins—one from each era of the first 12 Roman emperors, including a rare coin of the emperor Otho, who reigned for just three months. "I must have been the first person to touch them in almost 40 years,” he said. The coin collection, which also includes coins from early America and England, had been donated to the University at Buffalo Libraries Special Collections as part of a collection of rare books in 1935. To read about a cache of similar coins discovered in a cave in Israel, see "Artifact: Roman Coins."
