ANA Lectures Reveal America’s 250-Year Money Story
American coins do more than pass from hand to hand. They carry the record of a nation.
In 2026, that record will take center stage in Pittsburgh. During the American Numismatic Association’s World’s Fair of Money®, experts will examine how coins, medals, tokens, and paper money have reflected America’s search for freedom, identity, stability, and meaning from 1776 to today.
The program comes at a powerful moment. As the United States marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, the Maynard Sundman/Littleton Coin Company Lecture Series will ask a larger question: What does American money reveal when collectors read it closely?
Sundman Lecture Series Comes to Pittsburgh
The Maynard Sundman/Littleton Coin Company Lecture Series will take place Wednesday, August 26, from 10 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh.
This year’s theme, “Striking Independence: 250 Years of American Numismatics,” fits the moment. The series will look beyond dates, mintmarks, and denominations. Instead, it will show how money recorded crisis, change, and national self-definition across two and a half centuries.
The lectures form part of the ANA’s 2026 World’s Fair of Money®, which runs August 25-29 in Pittsburgh.
10 a.m. — Toby Reeves: Coins Don’t Lie
Toby Reeves will open the series with “Coins Don’t Lie: How 250 Years of American Monetary Crisis Created a Roadmap for the Digital Currency Revolution.”
Reeves will argue that American monetary history has followed the same five-stage crisis cycle four times over 250 years. In his view, the pattern did not happen by chance. Instead, the numismatic record preserves the evidence.
His talk will use coins, tokens, and paper money as primary evidence of American behavior during periods of monetary stress. Reeves will also connect that history to cryptocurrency. He will argue that crypto does not break from American monetary tradition. Rather, it continues it.
His point is direct. When Americans lose confidence in official money, they create alternatives. They did it in 1776. They did it again in the 1860s. They did it after 1971. And, according to Reeves, they are doing it again now.
11:15 a.m. — Dr. Eric Karrell: The Fine Print of American History
At 11:15 a.m., Dr. Eric Karrell will present “Our Nation’s History – It’s All There in the ‘Fine Print.’”
Few American objects feel more familiar than the $1 bill. Yet most people never pause to read it. Karrell will focus on one short phrase printed on modern Federal Reserve Notes:
“This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private.”
Those 12 words carry a long legal and monetary history. However, that wording did not always appear on American money in the same form. Across 250 years, U.S. paper money used many variations of the legal-tender obligation.
Karrell’s lecture will show how those changes reveal larger shifts in American law, finance, and government authority. In short, the “fine print” tells a national story.
12:15 p.m. — Sundman Luncheon
The Sundman Luncheon will begin at 12:15 p.m.
A fee and pre-registration are required.
2 p.m. — Russ Bega: From Libertas to Liberty
At 2 p.m., Russ Bega will present “From Libertas to Liberty: The Foreign Roots of America’s Numismatic Identity.”
Americans often treat Liberty as a homegrown ideal. U.S. coinage has carried that word and idea for more than two centuries. However, the imagery behind American Liberty reaches much farther back.
Bega will trace Liberty as a numismatic symbol from the ancient Mediterranean world to the early United States. His lecture will begin with Greek and Roman traditions. It will examine figures such as Libertas and symbols such as the pileus, or liberty cap.
Then, Bega will follow those ideas into the Enlightenment and the Atlantic revolutions of the 18th century. Long before the United States struck its first federal coins, European art, political philosophy, and coinage had already shaped the visual language of liberty.
As a result, America’s numismatic identity came from a broader classical and international tradition.
3:15 p.m. — Caroline Turco: Republics in Profile
Caroline Turco will close the program at 3:15 p.m. with “Republics in Profile: The Parallel Transition from Allegory to Authority in American and Roman Coinage.”
From the beginning, American coinage avoided portraits of living leaders. The Founders, especially George Washington, rejected portrait coinage because it suggested monarchy. Instead, the young republic placed allegorical Liberty on its coins.
Yet that approach changed. Within little more than a century, Washington and other former presidents became the dominant faces of U.S. coinage. Today, American coins often commemorate people, events, and national origin stories instead of abstract civic ideals.
Turco will place that American transformation beside an earlier historical example: the shift from Roman Republic coinage to Imperial portrait coinage.
Her lecture will explore how both societies used money to shape civic identity. It will also examine how coin images promoted shared myths and redefined political legitimacy.
A World’s Fair of Money Program Built for America’s 250th
The 2026 Sundman Lecture Series gives collectors a full-day look at American money as evidence.
Together, the four talks move from monetary crisis to legal language, from classical Liberty to presidential portraiture. Therefore, the program offers more than a celebration of America’s 250th anniversary. It offers a sharper way to read the objects collectors already study.
To register for the Sundman Lecture Series, visit WorldsFairOfMoney.com.
For questions about the presentations, contact Doug Mudd at [email protected].
About the World’s Fair of Money
The World’s Fair of Money is an annual convention hosted by the American Numismatic Association.
The event features educational seminars, lectures, and presentations from noted numismatists. It also brings together hundreds of dealers who buy, sell, and appraise coins and currency. In addition, the show includes rare treasures on display, auctions, and other numismatic programs.
For more information, visit WorldsFairOfMoney.com.
