THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

THE COLLECTOR SERIES
Elsewhere we have set out some of the prominent
rarities and difficulties of the series under notice, and
additional particulars occur in the Numismatic Cir-
cular. With these facts and suggestions to guide him,
the student should have no fear of being unable to
arrive at an approximate view of the subject, and the
monumental works of Heiss are at hand to assist those
whose aim it may be to enter into this section more
exhaustively. We are not to overlook the occasional
intimacy of political relations between England and the
Peninsula in the marriages of Eleanor of Castile, John
of Gaunt, and Philip IL, and in the British possession
of Gibraltar.
The coinages of Central and Southern America, not
reckoning indigenous products prior to the Spanish
epoch, have largely partaken of the nationality of the
early conquerors, as they have been influenced by the
constant political changes which have affected that vast
region. In the respective metals, the peso, the dollar,
and the centavo have always constituted the main
currency ; but money of necessity of all kinds has been
an unfailing periodical incidence.
Portugal, in the first instance an integral portion of
Spain, and erected into a county by Alfonso VI. of
Castile (1078-1109) in favour of Henry of Burgundy, his
son-in-law, in 1094, completes the numismatic survey
which has been undertaken of the European states.
From having been at the outset an appanage of the
mother-kingdom, this government gradually acquired,
in the same manner as Spain, and about the same
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