The 1,000-square-foot gallery is part of the museum's overall West Wing renovations. The gallery space, triple what is currently devoted to numismatics, is scheduled to be ready for the public in July 2015.

Museum officials project that the gallery will be able to accommodate 1 million visitors annually. Access to the exhibit area will be closest from the Constitution Avenue entrance.

The National Numismatic Collection, containing nearly 1.6 million objects, is the largest numismatic collection in North America and one of the largest in the world. Coins, medals and decorations in the collection total more than 450,000; paper money accounts for another 1.1 million pieces. As a whole, the collection highlights the entire numismatic history of the world.

The Gallery of Numismatic History's six display cases, covered with Plexiglas, are designed to exhibit small objects.

Each case will be accompanied by pull-out discovery drawers positioned below, to expand the number of objects displayed, according to museum officials. The contents of the display drawers will be rotated in and out regularly.

The objects will be secured so that they can be viewed, but not individually handled or removed, by the public.

The six display cases are designed to permit double-sided viewing of coins, medals, tokens, paper money and other numismatic objects. Each display case will be dedicated to specific themes tracing the evolution of money, its development and uses.

Representations of Liberty, symbols of national strength and related motifs will be among the topics explored. Items to be represented will include primitive money, such as Yap stones; specie; and technological advances, incorporating such items as credit cards and virtual currency.

To read the complete article, see:Smithsonian moving ahead with Gallery of Numismatic History tripling current space for NNC(www.coinworld.com/insights/numismatic-exhibit-at-smithsonian-moving-ahead-for-july-15-openi.html)