HKB
my possession, which had cost me five guineas, and for which he allowed me eight, so that it came to me at about ten per cent. on the auction price.
My undeviating experience is that the survival of really fine old coins, except in the Greek and Roman series, where continual finds operate to shake values, so far as all but the Roman first brass and the Greek copper are concerned, is very small. I have repeatedly put this point to a practical test. Mr Whelan once overhauled on my behalf at Paris some 3000 coins, and brought over with him sixteen, of which I rejected eight. Messrs Lincoln & Son several years since placed on view about 2000 Greek silver pieces; of course many were duplicate specimens; but I failed to discover more than about a score within my rather exacting and trying lines. At the sale of the United Service Institution in 1895 there were fully 3000 copper coins; from these thirty or so were selected as likely to suit me; and I reduced the number on a final scrutiny to half. When the Boyne cabinet of old continental money was offered for sale, the series being so peculiarly on my lines, I carefully marked the catalogue, and in due course examined the collection. There were by estimation 25,000 pieces, more or less; it was a heavy task; but my object was numismatic as well as commercial. I aimed at taking notes no less than at venturing on a few purchases; and I found the same thing. The items had been over-described as regarded condition; and I could not see more than twenty or thirty, which were likely to be of advantage to me in augmenting my small gathering without detriment to the prevailing quality. Even in the Montagu sales of Greek silver, where such high prices ruled, and of which so much was made in the papers, the proportion of first-rate pieces was inconsiderable. I went through the whole; and the apology tendered by the exhibitor before the auction was that many of them were so rare.
This plea may hold very good for a public repository like the British Museum, which is supposed to possess an example of every existing piece of ancient currency (by the way, it by no means does); but I maintain that it is no argument for a private collector, unless it happens that he is closely studying a particular section of numismatics. Under ordinary circumstances, the coin, and for that matter the medal also, is to be treated as a work of art or as a curiosity by its owner or seeker, and it appears to be inconsistent with the nature of the case to amass a huge assemblage of numismatic monuments, which are not required for use, and which are not suitable as ornaments or chefs d'oeuvre.
The prevailing standard in our own and in foreign public institutions is not usually high, because they have been largely indebted to gifts and legacies in days when preservation was not even so much regarded as at present. I am persuaded that a fine sense of the constituent features of a good coin has always been, and remains, a signal exception to the general rule.