Vast collection of coins, each one a miniature masterpiece, a visit to the Numismatic Museum gives a close-up look at the history of Greece as revealed through coins, ancient and modern.

It has over 500,000 items in its collection, but obviously, only a few are displayed at any time.

• The Athens Numismatic Museum is one of the very few of its kind in the world, and the only one in Greece and the Balkans.

• It has around 600,000 coins, which range chronologically from Greek antiquity through the Roman and Byzantine periods and the middle Ages in Western Europe into Modern times.

• The main exhibitions of the museum on the first floor narrate the history of coinage; the construction, dissemination, usage and the different iconography of coins in the Ancient Greek world.

• On the second floor there are exhibitions of Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Medieval and of the modern era.