Famous Fingerprints

[Zoins]

After looking at coins with fingerprints for a while I started to wonder if any coins have fingerprints of famous people and, if so, would they be worth more? Imagine having a coin with George Washington's or Lincoln's fingerprints? I think it would be pretty cool.

[EZ_E]

There are ancient bullae with fingerprints:

 

In 1975 the first few pieces of 200 clay bullae were discovered in the shop of an antiquities dealer in East Jerusalem.1 Bullae are lumps of clay which were attached to documents and impressed with a seal. From the shape of its Hebrew characters (which vary throughout history) scholars date the collection to the 6th century BC, the time of Jeremiah. Within this collection are two bullae believed to have belonged to Baruch, and Jerahmeel (see above).

 

 

Israel Museum, Jerusalem

Kyle Pope

 

The three lines on the Baruch bulla read: “(Belonging) to Berekhyahu, the son of Neriyahu, the scribe.” The suffix -yahu was a common epithet attached to names in Judah, meaning, “blessed of Jehovah.” While translations sometimes render it “-iah” (cf. Baruch’s father Ner-iah), some texts drop it altogether.2 The bulla is now displayed in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem

The March/April 1996 issue of Biblical Archeology Review featured an article on another bulla belonging to a private collector from the same seal. What is unique about this is the clear impression of a fingerprint on the upper left of the bulla. The article suggested this was the “fingerprint of Jeremiah’s scribe.” 3 While it is presumptuous to assume this is Baruch’s fingerprint, at the very least discoveries such as this remind us that the people of the Bible were not imaginary figures from fairy tales, but real souls who served our God in the past.

[Zoins]

Thanks for posting. That's really interesting and connects the it to people of the times.

[LuvToCollect]

I saw recently where the DaVinci fingerprint had been reconstructed so who knows what the future holds.

[DWLange]

Let's just hope that no one has coins with fingerprints of famous graders!

[MAULEMALL]

Let's just hope that no one has coins with fingerprints of famous graders!

I believe that pcgs has TMed that practice