THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

THE COLLECTOR SERIES
mulation of coins in all metals, of all countries, of all
periods, which the incessant and combined labours of
numismatic experts have, more particularly within the
last half-century, reduced to some degree of order and
sequence by the means of monographs and local studies,
without arriving at a solution of many moot problems,
much less at the end of the task. The modern Euro-
pean coinage has perhaps enjoyed at the hands of those
most competent to deal with it far less attention than
it merits. Many localities are still without any syste-
matic account of their currencies, which has to be
obtained by casual or indirect means ; and even such
as have secured specialists to describe them cannot be
said, as a rule, to possess more than dry lists or calen-
dars, destitute of allusion to the human interest resident
in so large a proportion of these remains.
In the treatment of the coinage of the United Kingdom
from British times, condensation and succinctness
have of course been imperative, while the larger books
on this branch of the theme, in regard at least to the
more modern coins, are perhaps too copious and minute.
The Anglo-Gallic series has been classed with the French,
which it chiefly follows in its models and denominations.
It is trusted and thought that no essential facts have
been overlooked.
It is only necessary to make a survey of the extent
of the field covered by a manual like that now offered
to the coin-collector, and of the bulky and even volumi-
nous publications which scholars have dedicated to
accounts of the numismatic histories of individual
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