volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

Parthian Coins. 287
them to London and hand them over to the Keeper
at the British Museum, who would, if he wanted them
and they were worth it, give her the sum she named.
This was not sufficient for her : she wanted me to take
the coins and give her a receipt for them, as well as
an undertaking to pay the minimum sum she asked
immediately I arrived in London, whether the British
Museum took them or not. In fact, I was expected
to buy the collection on the spot, and pay for it in
London. I had heard Dr. Percy Gardner, the expert
on Parthian coins, talk learnedly about them, and I knew
that the chance of acquiring a large collection of genuine
coins like Madame Lubicz's was not often met with.
I therefore took over the collection, and gave a receipt
for them, and the undertaking required. When I arrived
in London they were taken over by the Keeper of the
Department of Coins and Medals, who considered the
collection to be very valuable, and recommended its
purchase to the Trustees at a price which was exactly
double the sum named by its owner. ^ Madame Lubicz
received the warrant for the money in due course, and
returned me my receipt.
Having done everything I could do in Baghdad for
that season I took a passage to Basrah in the s.s.
" Mejidieh," and arrived there with Nimrud Rassam
on February 24th. Nimrud told me that he had relatives
living at Nasriyah on the Euphrates, and I invited him
to come to Basrah with me ;
it was the first time he had
ever travelled on a steamer, and his wonder at all he
saw on it was great. H.M.S. " Sphinx " was anchored
in the Shatt-al-'Arab, and Captain Hart Dyke, her Commander,
and his First Lieutenant, Mr. Christian, rendered
me invaluable assistance in shipping a considerable
number of boxes of tablets, etc., which I had picked
up at various places on the way down the river. They
also made me " free " of their ship, and showed me
' All the Parthian coins in the collection are described in Wroth's
Catalogue of the Coins of Parthia, London, 1903, and they include
specimens of the coinage of nearly every Parthian king from Tiridates I
to Volagases V.