William Carew Hazlitt

The Coin Sales—My Stealthy Accumulations from Some of Them—Comparative Advantages of Large and Small Sales—The Disappointment over One at Genoa—The Boyne Sale—Its Meagre Proportion of Fine Pieces—My Comfort, and what came to Me—Narrow Escape of the Collection from Sacrifice to a Foreign Combination—Trade Sales Abroad—A New Departure—Considerations on Poorly-Preserved Coins—I resign Them to the Learned—I have to Classify by Countries and Their Divisions—My Personal Appurtenances—Suggestions which may be Useful to Others—The Great Bactrian Discovery—Extent of Representative Collections of Ancient Money—Antony and Cleopatra—Adherence to My own Fixed and Deliberate Plan—The Argument to be used by Any One following in My Footsteps—Advice of an Old Collector to a New One.

From the very limited nature of my resources I have been forced to content myself with being a casual buyer. I have witnessed the dispersion of all the finest assemblages of coins, which have come to the hammer or into the market in the course of nearly twenty years, and have involuntarily played the part of a spectator and note-maker, where it would have delighted me to compete for the best with the best.I have not attended auctions as a buyer either of china or of coins save in one or two instances at the outset, and I have subsequently rejected these acquisitions as indiscreet. The principal sales, which have fallen under my observation, were those of Lake Price, Shepherd, Whithall, Marsham, Rostron, Webb, Carfrae, Ashburnham, Montagu, and Bunbury, 1884-96; these were limited to the English, Greek, and Roman series; and I presume that some filtered unrecognised into my cabinet. Of the foreign collections, or those into which the continental element entered, I took more particular note and more direct cognisance. There were the Rossi, Remedi, Ingram, Leyster, Dillon, Samuel Smith, United Service Institution, Boyne, and Durazzo, between the year 1880 and the present time.

The latter group immediately or eventually contributed a really large body of additions. From the Ingram sale came the double gold scudo of Pope Julius II. by Francia, which I mention only, because it was, I think, my earliest heavy purchase of the kind. The Leyster affair was antecedent to the serious competition of Spink & Son for such property; and the bulk went abroad. From such purchases as Lincoln & Son effected I took anything, which passed my standard; but too many of the lots were poor, and not a few were fabrications. It was a vast collection formed by a gentleman in Ireland at a distance from any centre and without much apparent taste or discretion; and the German houses very probably did well over it.

Lord Dillon’s coins yielded a few items, which I was glad to get—one or two Polish gold pieces, a Venetian 12-ducat one, and so forth; and among the silver there was a half dick-thaler of Sigismund, Archduke of Austria, for the Tyrol, 1484, which Mr Schulman assured me did not exist, and which I engraved in my Coins of Europe, 1893. I have since met with a second. It is hard to determine which is the superior market, a big sale or a small one. At the former items may be overlooked; the latter does not attract buyers so freely. To Mr Samuel Smith of Liverpool I was indebted, when he parted with his comparatively limited acquisitions, for the finest specimens which I have seen of the Bern thaler of 1494, and the Lorraine one of 1603, at a far more moderate tariff than inferior examples have brought before or since. Then in the entire sale not more than three items altogether excited any interest on my part. It was just the same when the Royal United Service Institution submitted its numismatic property to public competition. It was in the main a mass of rubbish; I picked out one or two silver pieces and a lot of about thirty selected copper, of the latter of which I kept less than half. The unselected copper numbered 3000 or so, and were only eligible for the melting-pot.

The Durazzo Collection, sold at Genoa, was a singular disappointment. The catalogue was rather sumptuous and very detailed. A rumour prevailed at the time that the alleged provenance of the collection was not strictly veracious, and that the property actually belonged to Vitalini the Italian dealer. As a numismatic amateur during almost a score of years I have experienced a good deal of this kind of personation; but I argue that it matters little whence a coin comes to one, so long as the character and state are right, with the added advantage that in passing from an inferior to possibly a better atmosphere the purchase improves in value.There were about 6500 lots, of which the majority consisted of Roman and Greek; the remainder was continental. Many of the Italian rarities were included; and Genoa and Monaco were very strongly represented. I knew that Spink & Son had sent commissions, and I augured well for the result; but I had not indicated my views personally, and indeed the catalogue did not reach my hands, till it was too late for me to intervene. I had never before known such a series of the money of Monaco to be offered simultaneously.

When no news in any shape came to my ears, it transpired on inquiry that a few Papal coins, recently acquired by me, belonged to the collection, and that the prevailing feature of the latter was a state of preservation so utterly hopeless, that some of the company retired after the first day. The actual metallic records were there, I presume; but they did not harmonise with the estimates of the too romantic cataloguer. Even now, after the event, who ought to feel surprise, if whatever there may have been of any merit, should ultimately drift to these hospitable shores, and—?

The dispersion of the cabinet of the late William Boyne in London interested me uniquely, for it was particularly rich in the Italian series, and the incident differed from those, which had preceded it within my remembrance, inasmuch as the property was brought within reach of inspection, and one could sit at a table in Wellington Street, prior to the commencement of operations, and examine the coins, catalogue in hand. It was a ten-days’ affair, and it was computed that there were 25,000 items. Still I resolved to go through with my project for seeing every lot, which I had marked, and judging whether it was a desirable acquisition.

I read between the lines of the catalogue with the aid of one or two of my numismatic acquaintances, who warned me against expecting too much; for they were familiar with my idiosyncrasies. Taking tray by tray, I actually saw far more than I contemplated; nearly the whole property passed before me in review; and I was grievously disappointed. It was an indiscriminate assemblage of coins of all sorts, evidently bought at random or en bloc, and poverty of condition preponderated in a lamentable measure.There was one consolation. I was enabled to concentrate all my pecuniary forces on the few objects, which struck me as exceptional; and I succeeded in making myself master of nearly all the specialities among the Italians, which I coveted, and several desiderata elsewhere.

The competition was sensibly mitigated by an entente cordiale among a portion of the company, and the bulk returned to the continent. Had the collection been equally attractive and important to myself from a numismatic and a commercial point of view, I should have found much more than I could have possibly grasped; but the prevalent state conformed to the normal continental definition of beau, which in English signifies crucible.

There was little enough in the Boyne catalogue, which I had not learned from a careful previous study of those of all the great Italian, German, and French collections, which had been published or privately printed. But the occasion supplied me with a precious opportunity of holding in my hands coins, which, whatever might be their value or want of value as possessions, were and are in many instances of immense rarity, and seemed, when in direct contact, additionally substantial and authentic.

Four or five bidders saved the issue from being a fiasco in a financial sense. But the selection of London as the scene may tend to accelerate a little the recognition in Great Britain of the ancient money of the continent as at all events an appropriate chronological sequel to that of Greece and Rome, while it represents in itself a body of material of inexhaustible curiosity and value to the historian and the artist.

I purposely abstain from classing with the sales of explicit or professed private properties those, which, as season succeeds season, are dedicated by the trade everywhere to the object of converting their surplus or unrealised stock into money. One feels an almost painful delicacy in handling this part of the subject; and I propose to restrict myself to the criticism that it is possible to secure many absolute bargains at a reduced price by making an offer to the party who, for anything one knows, may be a kind of trinity in unity—owner, cataloguer, and auctioneer. Coins are speculative goods; and if a lot or so misses certain expected channels, it is sometimes a lodger with the proprietor long enough to make him tired of looking at it. Then, when he is in his most despondent vein, comes the moment for the opportunist, and there are twenty-four pence in every shilling.

The auction-rooms among ourselves and abroad, wherever there is a volume of business in coins (and in other second-hand commodities), appear to be vehicles, however, more and more for a systematic organisation, by which the dealer sells his goods under the hammer instead of over the counter. Foragers are observed collecting in one market by virtue of their special knowledge lots suitable for disposal in this way in another or others; and they have a machinery adapted to their peculiar requirements. Their stock is always a floating one. Thousands of pounds pass through their hands in a season. There are not many in the line, for it demands some capital, some credit, and some courage. There is one house, which avers that it carries on this system for the public good—in order to diffuse a conversance with numismatic science. We have more heroes and philanthropists than we dream of, have we not?

As I mentally or otherwise glance through my at length not so very inconsiderable accumulation of ancient or obsolete currencies, I strive to think how my own experience is capable of serving those, who have the starting-point nearer within view. It seems at first sight to be regretted, that not merely such large sums of money, but so much time and labour, should be expended in perpetuity in the stereotyped process of gathering up the wrong things, gradually detecting their character, and retrieving the error by casting overboard the original lot, and beginning anew on a truer basis.

The cause of numismatic archÆology of course imperatively demands the preservation of every item of every mint, no matter how degraded may be its state, or how insignificant its individuality, so long as it is of that high degree of scarcity, which entitles it to monumental regard. I may more emphatically specify, as falling within such a definition, the examples engraved and described by my correspondent, Count NicolÒ Papadopoli, in his Monete Italiane Inedite, 1893, the major part of which come very far short of my personal ideas of works of art, but of which the affectionate custody by posterity becomes a duty on historical grounds. At the same time, as my aim has been necessarily a narrow one, and as I elected at a very early stage in my experience to figure as one of the apostles of Condition, I cheerfully resign these records to others, and am quite satisfied with engraved reproductions of them. On that precaution I lay the utmost stress.

In my first apprenticeship to numismatics I believe that I was unusually ignorant of a subject, which the works of reference introduced since my school-days have rendered so much more accessible and intelligible. But I was industrious and observant, and was not deficient in taste. I began to collect at a period of life, when I was able to discern the fallacy of the penny-box principle; my level was never very low, if it was not in the earlier years so high as it ultimately grew; and I no sooner perceived a mistake, than I hastened to rectify it. An appreciable interval elapsed, however, before I found myself in possession of a sufficient body of coins to make a distribution into countries or sections of any service. There were so many specimens; the metals were unequally represented; and I recollect that gold resembled the plums in a school pudding.It was a gala day, when I received my first cabinet home, and entered into a rudimentary and tentative phase of classification; and it was then, too, that not my opulence, but my excessive poverty and humility, as a collector was revealed to me. Providentially, these shocks are generally broken by some circumstance, and in my case it was my still most empirical acquirement of the full bearings and scope of my adventurous enterprise.

The cabinet stood half empty; I felt the reproach; and I proceeded not only to fill it, but to gather tenants for a second—and a third, with an overflow capable of furnishing one or two more. Such a development might have had comparatively slight significance, because a coin, which is worth a penny, may occupy a larger space than one, which is worth £10; but in a parallel ratio with the increase in number was the rise in the qualifying standard, or, in other words, I was constantly and heavily adding to my stores, and putting in rigorous force the principle of exclusion. There could be only one result.

Now, in the hope, that certain general particulars, which have cost the writer an infinite amount of trouble to collect for his own benefit and instruction during a series of years, may be acceptable and useful to others, proposing to embark in the same undertaking, I shall reduce the fruit of my own efforts to a summary, indicative of what has seemed to me, after long and deliberate consideration, to be adequate to the purposes of anyone of moderate views, who seeks to assemble together a fairly representative corpus of the various chronological monuments of European rulers and regions and of the successive schools of numismatic art. Completeness in any given series is by no means essential to the mastery of a competent idea of its character and merits from all ways of looking; and the study of mints and mint-marks is a mere technical detail, which owes its leading interest to its incidental illustrations of topography and of the careers of engravers—many of them otherwise distinguished.

Many persons start with the Greek or Roman, or perhaps both, from a belief that they are the most ancient and the most instructive. My first Roman coin was a most disreputable specimen of a very common first brass of Hadrian, handsomely presented to my son by a captain at a watering-place, and my first Greek a forgery of one of the numberless tetradrachms of Alexander the Great. I was in the berceaunette stage; but I was not quite so long in it as some are. I am indebted to Lincoln & Son for having conferred on me the rudiments (if not something more) of my education in these two very important divisions of every cabinet of any pretensions whatever; and I may at last presume to offer myself as a counsellor of others, who may be situated as I was in my nonage.

It entirely depends on the breadth of a new collector’s plan, which is usually influenced by his resources, how far he proceeds in his selection of the Greek coinage, for under any circumstances a selection it must be. No individual, no public institution, can boast of possessing a complete series in all metals. I resorted to the principle of choosing under each coin-striking region of ancient Hellas a sufficient number of pieces in electrum, gold, silver, and copper or bronze to represent a chronological succession of its products, and I also observed the rule of comprising, if possible, all such as exhibited the portraitures, or at least titles, of rulers of personal eminence. A numismatist pure and simple attaches, very justly attaches from his special point of view, emphatic weight to many examples, of which the sole attraction and value are their accidental rarity without regard to their intrinsic interest; this is not a wise policy for the private amateur, whatever his fortune may be. Such relics ought to find their resting-place in a public repository, and a full record of them should be preserved in one of the learned Transactions for general reference. How immensely one was pleased to learn that Sir Wollaston Franks had fallen in with a Bactrian dekadrachm; and the satisfaction, so far as I was concerned, was augmented by the news, that he had presented it to the British Museum. If it had been submitted as a purchase or even gift to myself, I should have declined it, as it fails to respond to my postulates. It is merely a voucher.

It is my impression, based on a long experience, that about three hundred Greek coins of all varieties and types will be found to embrace everything of real note, and will provide the possessor with numismatic specimens in all metals, of every region, of every period and style, of each denomination, and of all such great personalities as are known to have struck money, not only within the limits of European Greece, but in the countries and colonies subject to its sovereigns in their varied degrees of power and prosperity or by its cities from their first rude development to their zenith in political influence and commercial wealth. A proportion of gold is highly desirable, particularly the Athenian, Syracusan, and Egyptian; the copper must be very fine and patinated; the silver is the easiest to find, except in certain series. I succeeded in furnishing myself with the majority of typical examples alike in silver and bronze, and indeed (except under Attica) in the most precious metal. I could never meet with more than a single Athenian specimen—a ??e?t??; but the most beautiful and fascinating productions are the gold tetradrachms and octodrachms of the Ptolemies, so rich in their portraiture, costume, and design. Three or four of these gems suffice for a moderate programme. I found fifty pounds inadequate to the purchase of even three. There is a particularly charming one of Ptolemy III., and no one must forget that great, if not very good, lady, the Cleopatra of history, whose portrait appears both on her brother’s and her own coins in Egypt and on those of Mark Antony in the Roman consular series. To any collector aiming at the not unreasonable object of securing her likeness it may be useful to mention, that her veiled or deified bust accompanies certain bronze pieces of moderate price and excellent quality.

The writer has attentively scrutinised the catalogues of all the sales of Greek and Roman money, which have taken place in his time, and the conclusion to be drawn from the descriptive accounts and the realised figures is so far a consolatory one for the great majority, who cannot afford to go beyond a comparatively low figure. For it becomes clearly apparent that the costliest pieces are not the most powerful in their appeal to us on historical or artistic grounds. Remember that we have to take into account these points of interest: history, with which is closely embodied religious cult, biography, topography, and art. A thoroughly well-meaning dealer exclaims, if you challenge the quotation for some indifferent specimen of a not too remarkably executed tetradrachm or drachma:—‘But look at the rarity! the last one sold for so much.’ And I am sorry to say, that this plea too frequently prevails. I have always turned a deaf ear to all attempts to induce me to acquire on any terms coins, which were not highly preserved, whatever their scarcity of occurrence might be. I preferred to examine them in other hands, or even to contemplate engravings derived from superior examples.

Let a person in my position lay down for himself this principle for his guidance:—My space is limited; my means are the same; the material or means of supply, as time goes on, is infinite and inexhaustible; no collection in the universe is complete; therefore, incompleteness being a relative expression, I will take here and there, from this sale or that, from this or that place of business, just as many coins as serve to gratify my love of the beautiful, my reverence for great names, my curiosity to hold in my hand pieces of currency which, alike in the case of Greece and Rome, united with their monetary import and use symbols of an earnest religious faith and proud records of national achievements by sea and land.

To possess an even extensive assemblage of such monuments I found in my own experience, and others may do the same, that a man has not to be quite a Croesus; nor in truth is it peremptory to insist in such extreme measure as I have on faultless beauty of state. I may have been too luxurious, too dainty. At any rate, all which contributes to render coins of all periods and kinds serviceable and agreeable is within the reach of individuals of very straitened purchasing powers. But it is necessary to guard against disproportion, which is very likely to arise in all sections from the occurrence of the products of trouvailles in tempting condition at a modest tariff.

My recommendation is to avoid even the semblance of duplicates, where the sole difference is the date or the mint-mark, or possibly a slight variation in the legend. My natural sympathy is with the poorer collector, who has perchance to exercise a little self-denial to enable him to carry out successfully and profitably his hobby; the rich have only to buy and to pay; and those, who may choose to follow in my footsteps more or less, will soon discover, as I did, that to arrive at a satisfactory result under pecuniary disadvantages is a task demanding knowledge, discretion, and patience.

Of the passions of the human mind that which directs us to a certain object or aim, if not to more than one, with irresistible vehemence, and holds us bound within its range as by a spell, is one of the strongest, most ancient, and most unreasoning. My own life during the past thirty or forty years, or in other words the best part of my career, has been mainly engrossed by the pursuit of two or three fancies; the serious business of existence seems to have been a secondary question; and the most substantial testimony to my earnestness of purpose and (I have to own) my thorough subjection to the influence of the taste, is to be found in my irresponsive surroundings and my sacrifice of other interests to what my less sentimental friends would call an ignis fatuus.