If you love money, it is worth stopping by the Maybank bank in Kuala Lumpur. No, they are unlikely to simply give you money there; instead, they will probably suggest visiting the Numismatics Museum. After all, money can be loved from a scholarly point of view as well, and not only in quantitative terms.
The Numismatics Museum is located on the first floor of the grand Maybank tower, and admission to it is, oddly enough, free. The first exhibition was opened in 1988; since then the collection has gradually expanded and, although it has not become the largest in the world, it has still grown to quite impressive proportions.
There are many rare and expensive coins and banknotes from the period of the Malacca Sultanate on display here. In addition to the money formats familiar to us, the museum contains such interesting specimens as small cannonballs used on Borneo for payments, as well as silver ingots and gold dust.
You can study the entire history of Malaysia through money. Here are coins that were in circulation during the Portuguese colonization, and here are living witnesses to the era of Queen Victoria, King George V, and King Edward VII. There are also quite a lot of examples of foreign numismatics here — from Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, and other countries.
The museum's collection will be of interest not only to professionals and numismatists, but also to ordinary visitors who would like to get to know the history of Malaysia from different angles.
