1815: Hofrat Becker moves to Offenbach

A distinction must be made between the silver casts made during Becker's lifetime and later lead casts made from the dies. The acquired pieces are among the authentic silver casts and, according to the director of the museum Dr. Jürgen Eichenauer, are considered to be very rare. The recent increase in the appearance of such rarities can be explained by their origin from the same family estate.

In 1954, Dr. Hans Rill recorded the Becker part of the city's coin collection in a catalog, which lists 542 specimens without the most recent acquisitions. The Offenbach leather goods dealer and coin collector Carl Nathan Mayer (1855-after 1938), whose house on the north-eastern corner of Frankfurter Straße and Luisenstraße has been preserved, had amassed what was probably the largest collection of its kind and left it to the city of Offenbach am Main, as recorded in a newspaper report from 1922.

Carl Wilhelm Becker lived in Offenbach from 1815 to 1826 in a house in Kanalstraße (now "Kaiserstraße"), diagonally opposite St. Paul's Church, which no longer exists. Originally from Speyer, Becker had turned to the art and coin trade after working as a wine merchant. This also earned him the trust of Prince Carl von Isenburg, who awarded him the title of court councillor and whose art advisor he became.

Becker had far-reaching relationships with many collectors and museums in Europe, for example the poet prince Goethe in Weimar was one of his customers. In addition to his commercial efforts, which were not always successful, Becker possessed artistic and technical skills, which he combined with a keen understanding of antiquity to produce copies of coins from the period.

Even during Becker's lifetime, these coinages were denigrated as forgeries, while he himself described them as a contribution to general education and offered the coin copies in a sales list. In 1826, Becker moved to Homburg vor der Höhe, where he died heavily in debt, not least due to the financial repercussions of the accusations that had damaged his reputation.

In his publication series Kunst und Altertum am Rhein, Main und Neckar, Goethe praised the Offenbach coin copyist: "Mr. Becker, highly esteemed as a medallist, has insightfully arranged an important series of coins from all periods to elucidate the history of his field. He has paintings of importance, well-preserved bronzes and ancient works of art of various kinds.

Elsewhere, in the Annalen oder Tag- und Jahreshefte zum Jahr 1815, Goethe recorded: Hofrat Becker in Offenbach presented important paintings, coins and gems, not averse to leaving one and the other desirable items to the enthusiast. It was not without reason that Goethe mentioned this collection.

Becker's paintings included Dutch works by Ruysdael, van der Neer, van Everdingen and van der Velde, and he also showed finely cut cameos and paintings, carefully arranged coins and ivory art cups.

However, Becker's reputation as a coin forger, who did not shy away from fraudulent practices, has determined the image of posterity to the present day. Nevertheless, Carl Wilhelm Becker should not be described as a coin forger in the conventional sense, as he did not forge any pieces in circulation.

The following specimens were purchased:
Drachma, Epeiros, Alexander I, 342-326 BC.
Stater, Peloponnese, around 350 BC
Didrachm, Ptolemaic Empire, Ptolemy III Euergetes, 246-221 BC
Tetradrachm, Seleucid Empire, Antiochus VII Euergetes, 138-129 BC
Denarius, Rome, Traianus, 98-177 AD
Denarius, Imperium Galliarum, Postumus, 259-267 AD