Numismatics in Málaga: the shop and the circle

Diario Sur (opens in a new tab) (Isabel Méndez, 23 October 2026, updated on the 24th) portrays numismatics in Málaga through Gonzalo González, an expert witness at the head of Numismática Gonzalo, and through the Círculo Filatélico y Numismático de Málaga. It is not an inventory of Notofilia.

The shop on Molina Lario

González opened the business in 1981, on Molina Lario street, after leaving banking in that decade. Diario Sur presents him as one of six experts in the field in Spain who still serve the public in person. It notes that he is 75 and that, for now, he does not plan to retire. When he began, he says, numismatics was little known in the city, it barely had the university’s support, and the shops mixed stamps and coins. He had to press the tax authority for a heading of its own for the discipline. He obtained it a couple of years later, and that heading then came into use across Spain.

The paper sets the stamp, a nineteenth-century object, against metal coinage, which it places in the sixth century BC. The first coins, González says, were struck in Lydia, in what is now Turkey. He calls the coin “the most reliable historical document”: a small surface gathers the date of striking, the issuing authority, and the ruler. The shop holds pieces from every period, from Greek coins of the sixth century BC to gold and silver of the last Bourbons in the nineteenth century. Diario Sur shows the obverse and reverse of a gold 100 pesetas of Alfonso XIII, struck in 1897. That piece is not in this collection. The peninsula gold published here is different: an undated Seville 2 escudos of Philip II, and a Madrid half escudo of Ferdinand VI, 1757.

Three filters, three clients

Before he accepts a coin, González applies three filters: authenticity, condition, and price. Among people who come in to exchange pieces he distinguishes three groups: those looking for a financial refuge, those who study numismatics and want historical pieces, and those who inherited something and do not know what to do with it. He says there are no suppliers here, as there are in a shoe shop. The clientele is mostly local or Spanish. There are also regulars who come from abroad: Diario Sur tells of a Canadian who gets off the plane, visits him, spends one night at the Málaga Palacio, and leaves.

Among professionals, physical shops are giving way to auction houses. The private hobby, the paper says, continues. González describes the collector as ranging “from military officers to a goatherd, business owners, or young people drawn to history.” A buyer receives a guarantee certificate and a historical note written by hand. When he sells a notable piece, he admits that it hurts “as if it were a son.”

Internet rumours

For González, the internet cuts both ways: it lets people find him whom he could not have reached before, and it also feeds rumours. He says that eight out of ten problems that reach the courts over numismatic forgeries and frauds come from the internet, from hooks about supposed prices. The figure is his, not a count by Notofilia.

The Circle, since 1890

Diario Sur presents the Circle as the second oldest in Spain. It was founded in 1890 under the name Sociedad Filatélica, two years after the pioneer, in Barcelona. Today it has about thirty members, publishes a twice-yearly bulletin, and meets on Tuesday afternoons. Its main activity, according to the paper, is stamps. In the update of 24 October it announces a stamp exhibition on The Lord of the Rings at the main post office, in the Vialia area. Anyone who wants to join can write to circulofilnum@gmail.com. The paper also points to the Circle’s Facebook page, without giving the address.

The report closes by returning to circulating coin: for decades it has no longer been struck in gold or silver, and it remains a witness of each period, in a world where payment has moved from metal to the card and from the card to the phone.