Franz Seraph Streber

Who was Franz Seraph Streber?

Franz Seraph Streber was a German numismatist.

Streber was born in Deutenkofen, Lower Bavaria. The nephew of Franz Ignaz von Streber, he first studied theology and philosophy, then archæology and numismatics, and in 1830 wrote as his dissertation for obtaining the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Erlangen a paper on the genealogy of the Burgraves of Nuremberg. In 1854 he became a member of the Academy of Munich. In 1835 he was made professor of archæology at the University of Munich, of which he was twice rector. In 1827 he was made clerk, in 1830 assistant, and in 1841 curator of the royal cabinet of coins. He also worked on the numismatic collection of Vienna and prepared a critical catalogue of 18,000 Greek coins and a numismatico-iconographic lexicon with drawings of about 6000 Greek coins belonging to the Viennese and Munich collections.

In 1834 he published the work Numismata nonnulla græca, which corrected false and inexact designations of coins; this was crowned with a prize by the Academy of Paris as was also his important investigation concerning what are called the rainbow patina, which he was the first to recognize as Celtic.