THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

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. You cannot, as with a book,
make a good coin out of two bad ones ;
but you can com-
plete a legend or a type ; and instances are on record
where it has asked half-a-dozen more or less imperfect
pieces to supply the whole reading and story.
To specialists, whose treatment is naturally sectional
and exhaustive, the compiler of a volume which may
not be entitled to aspire to a higher rank than that
of a general numismatic chart must not calculate upon
being very serviceable. Yet, although a collector on
this narrow gauge may, and usually does, know what
he is doing, to him it is apt to be acceptable for the
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