i::o)i o I LIBRARY OF THE University of California. Class V Collector Series COINS Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from Microsoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/coincollectorOOhazlrich licctor fc; Autographs and\JF^> '^^C English Water- Manuscripts Colours Tapestry Lace and Miniatures Embroidery THE COIN COLLFXTOR 22 BY English Fine Prints W. CAREW Book Plates HAZLITT SECOND EDITION, REVISED EDINBURGH iw J O VMS GRANT Pictures Porcelain Old Bibles Ancient Glass ' L~- -.^ ; j 'ii . i 'w i » i i iw ft n i j, i mn jmnw CONTENTS NO PACK Introductory .... 7 I. Collectors and Collections . 19 II. Value of Coins 30 III. Unique or Remarkable Coins 38 IV. Greek Coins .... 50 V. Rome ..... 107 VI. Continent of Europe . 121 VII. United Kingdom . 158 VIII. The Coin Market 196 IX. Terminology . 217 X. Bibliography . 286 XI. Description of Plates 295 Index ...... 300 211157 OF THE UNIVERSITY C'i COINS INTRODUCTORY There are many collectors of antiquities, whatever the class may be, who must have felt that they would have been under very considerable obligations, both in re- spect to time and expense, to such a work of reference as might have enabled them to take a general survey of the proposed field of research, and select the ground which it seemed to them best to take up, supposing that it was out of the question to work on more com- prehensive lines. We feel sure that in numerous cases disappointment has been experienced on the too tardy discovery of the unsuspected or imperfectly known magnitude and cost of a collection of old china, old books, old coins, or anything else of the kind, fol- lowed sometimes by a relinquishment of the pursuit, sometimes by an enlargement of the scheme; and, apart from the extent and outlay proving themselves in excess of anticipation, the absence of a tolerably trustworthy guide to the principal points and par- ticulars demanding attention on the side of the buyer and to the dangers, or some of them, which beset the 7 8 THE COLLECTOR SERIES inexperienced amateur, must be regarded as incon- venient and undesirable. For surely it is far better for all concerned to start, if not with eyes quite open, at all events not with eyes quite shut. It is perfectly true, when we narrow the discus- sion to numismatics, that coins are sought by different persons from different motives or aims. The col- lector who chooses to buy specimens regardlessly of condition and value, just for the sake of forming a sort of assemblage of the currencies of older and extinct communities or of the former monetary sys- tems of existing ones, does not perhaps perceive the necessity or utility of counsel. There have been thousands of human creatures who have lived and died under the hallucination that they were the proprietors of important and interesting cabinets of coins, whereas those which were really valuable might have been counted on the fingers. It is so, always has been, and always will be, perchance, with every kind of curiosity and relic, so long as money is to judgment and taste in the ratio of 1000 to 1. We have associated with individuals who had succeeded, much to their appa- rent satisfaction, in amassing archaeological remains of various sorts, and if in their entire length and breadth there was an item or so above mediocrity, the fact was to be ascribed to some fortuitous circumstance, for which the owner was not immediately responsible. There are already two or three works belonging to the category of General Handbooks of Numismatics. Akerman's " Introduction to the Study of Ancient and INTRODUCTORY 9 Modern Coins" and "Numismatic Manual," 1840-48, are alike admirable ; but they represent the knowledge of half-a-century since, and are very weak indeed in the Continental section. "The Coin-Collector's Manual" of Humphreys, originally produced about sixty years ago, continues to reappear with new title- pages, and is not only in many respects obsolete, but mischievously deceptive, inasmuch as its text is the stan- dard of a period before the whole subject was placed on a new footing by modern scholarship and enterprise. It is probably unnecessary to insist on the wide dif- ference between the apparently trivial hobby and the real aims and uses of coin-collecting. It has been an object of interest and curiosity from ancient times, and has been adopted as a pursuit and a research by many of our greatest scholars and public characters in Eng- land of all ranks and professions, from the throne downward. But the manifold and immense value of the study as an aid to history and the progress of commerce and art, no less than to an elucidation of religious sentiment and popular superstition, must be allowed to be a relatively modern development, for which we have to be grateful to the surrender by the earth of its hidden treasures and to the interpreters of the lessons and secrets there discernible. The province of numismatics is so widely spread, that it embraces all periods and countries from the earliest introduction of coined money, and concerns a vast number of historical personages and events. The magnitude of the study is lightened to us by the — 10 THE COLLECTOR SERIES sectional labours of a host of able and enthusiastic inquirers, and we are at liberty to select the particular field or line which appears to suit our particular views. But if we cast our eyes around, we soon discover that the range of special pieces extends over the whole area, and that while we possess within the limits of modern Europe, or even of Britain, many remarkable examples, we should form a very imperfect idea of this aspect of the matter if we forbore to comprise the ancient Greek and Roman series and certain salient productions of the East; and it is apt to be a source of agreeable surprise to many who have not devoted much atten- tion to this topic, when they for the first time enjoy an opportunity of examining a veritable coin of the good Caliph Haroun El Reschid, or of that illustrious ruler of Hindostan, so greatly nearer to us, the Emperor Akbar. It is natural enough, of course, that both should have struck money, as they in fact did; but every one does not immediately realise that the Caliph of Bagdad was an actual reality (he was contemporary with Charlemagne), or that the author of the famous " Institutes " was a great practical sove- reign in the same way as Queen Elizabeth was. He was almost exactly parallel with her. Then, again, what collection of this class would be judged complete in the absence of Cleopatra the Cleopatra—the lady of whom, when we read of her achievements and triumphs and regard her features, we are nearly betrayed into suggesting that it must have been in her manner that much of the charm lav. INTRODUCTORY 11 The numismatic products of every part of Europe exhibit their own peculiar features of interest and claims to attention ; but a careful and leisurely colla- tion of one with another shows us more and more how much in this respect the moderns owe to the ancients, or how little the world has acquired in its riper life which it had not learned and forgotten in its youth. In the sort of coup-d'ceil which our volume affords, that great lesson is readable in many and many a place. One of the earliest collectors of coins in England is said to have been Prince Henry, son of James I. But the pursuit is undoubtedly of great antiquity, and the Romans are credited with having sought the money of those nations which preceded them, and notably the Greeks, in power and in the arts. There was a very prolonged interval, during the whole of the mediae- val period and later, when the ancient coinages were neglected and destroyed ; and even when the taste for memorials of the past revived, it was at first the medal rather than the current money which attracted atten- tion—the medal in the wider sense in which it still finds acceptance in many languages and systems. The modern Europeans made amends for their barbarous predecessors by engaging from the seventeenth century onward with unbroken continuity in the collection and study of these inestimable treasures ; and we know how busy the pickaxe and the spade have been in reclaiming from the earth in all parts of the world trodden by the ancients the buried heirlooms of centuries—numismatic archives, which have in some instances made the writing 12 THE COLLECTOR SERIES of history possible, and in others its rewriting necessary. These eloquent though inarticulate expounders of the transactions of mankind in remote ages have created, nearly within living memory, a new era in almost every department of human science, and have reduced our older books of reference and our former speculations alike to waste paper. The prosaic and utilitarian spirit of our modern money forbids us to believe that in the time to come men will turn to it for instruction from any point of view, save perhaps its betrayal of incipient national decline. Fortunately for those who follow numismatics as a calling, the inducements to collect are manifold indeed. There may be said to be no piece so destitute of com- mercial value, so insignificant in aspect, so artistically and historically trivial, which does not meet with a home, if not with an admirer. Poor specimens are fre- quently of the greatest use to the student in settling a moot point of detail.