THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

CONTINENT OF EUROPE
extent from examples in the Bibliotheque, or flatter
the originals. The representative or eclectic plan is
by far the best and safest here ; to become complete is
an impossibility ; and the collector has the option of
starting with the Merovingian and Carolingian money,
which is Frankish or Franco - German rather than
French, or with the true national series from Charles
le Chauve, or even from Hugues Capet. The gold or
the copper money alone would constitute an agreeable
study and an ample collection.
We have, in conclusion, to deal with the Iiserian
Peninsula, a region subject to very peculiar numis-
matic as well as political experiences, and on whose soil
many different races have left their footprints and their
influence without affecting France, except on its southern
frontier.
The earliest known coinage of Spain belongs to
peoples who were not Spaniards in blood, language,
or religion. The Greek, the Carthaginian, the Roman,
the Moor, the Arab, struck coins of the types with
which they were familiar in their own lands, before the
Spaniards existed as a nation, and even before the
states which were to be united under Ferdinand and
Isabella were recognised.
The earliest monetary system of Spain is divisible
into several broad sections : (i.) Celtiberian, Phoenician
or Punic, Greek and Roman ; (ii.) colonial, municipal
and urban, and regal. The last category is susceptible
of sub-classification into heads answering to the succes-
sive political centralising and decentralising movements
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