With all the talk about the Federal Reserve Bank, money and finance lately, we just had to see the Money Museum at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. Both of our children visited it when they were in school. I remember them bringing home a small bag filled with shredded money, which gave them pure joy, even though they could not use it.
I don’t know why we never went. My husband was once a big coin collector. His search for numismatic oddities was a fun pursuit. We found almost 900 silver coins hidden in my grandparent’s home after they died. They owned a bakery, and my grandmother would squirrel away all the silver coins that people paid with, replacing them in the till with regular coins. The coins were split between my mother and her brother. But my parents let my husband search through all their coins to get the largest variety of dates and coins before dividing my mother’s share with my siblings and me. We got to take the coins he needed for his collection as part of share.
In fact, in our tzedakah (charity) box, where we collected coins each week for years, we always had the children search through the coins to find ones we did not have before donating all the money saved each year to charity.
Even though this obsession with coins faded, I still cannot understand why we never went to see the Money Museum. My husband often passed the Federal Reserve building on the way to work and would consider going in. But it never happened. Until this March for our annual anniversary museum event.
It is not a very large museum. It takes about an hour to go through the displays, watch the movie and try some activities. They really made it family friendly, with activities for children and adults. The museum is free and during the summer there are free 30 minute tours at 10 am and 1 pm that you can join when you are there.
The first exhibit is the giant wall of coins that used to be at the Harry S Truman Presidential Library. The Truman Coin collection has over 450 coins all lined up by year and denomination from the beginning of the United States. This is a replacement collection that was donated by over 170 coin collectors after the original coins were stolen from the Truman Library in March 1962.
In fact, the day we went to the museum was the 61st anniversary of this infamous heist. The replacement coins were donated on May 6, 1967. Hence why I decided to write this blog now! It seemed apropos to visited on March 24 and then write the blog for May 6. But I digress. Back to the coins.
The coins were on display at the Truman Library for over 35 years. But now they make their home at the Money Museum. A perfect location for them. It is fun to see how coins we use every day have changed over the years.
Walking along the coin wall leads you straight to the museum. There were little stations set up for the guests to learn fun facts about money, finance and how the federal reserve system works. One display had counterfeit money and explained the safety mechanisms to check to see if bills are real. Another explains the history of piggy banks. There are fun facts on boards called “Jay’s Journal” directed toward children.
A favorite display for everyone when we went was the gold bar that you could try to lift. The only one we saw who could actually lift it was a young woman. She was STRONG. I could not get it to budge.
You should watch the movie, although some smaller children will not enjoy it. It is in the back of the museum, so you see almost all the displays first. We also enjoyed all the interactive displays along the wall in the hallway that leads to the vault. There were even two displays where you could take photos to send to your email.
When we finally reached the entrance to the area with the vault, I realized that the vault was enormous, much bigger than I imagined. NO photos are allowed in this area. We also got to see them shredding old paper money. When exiting the museum at the end, everyone can take home a small bag of the shredded money.
The Money Museum is not far from the restaurants at Crown Center. So we made a day of our museum adventure and ate lunch at Crown Center and walked around the shops as well.
It was another great Kansas City staycation trip.
zicharonot 