THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

THE COLLECTOR SERIES
It should be noted that the discovery of coins of this
or any class in situ is not necessarily a sure test of
local origin, since the wide acceptance of foreign cur-
rencies at a recognised rate in all commercial transac-
tions, from a very early period, led to hoards and finds
becoming of a composite or mixed character. This
circumstance explains the discovery of Carolingian
money in Britain side by side with Anglo-Saxon, and
of a British or Gaulish coin in Jutland ; and after all
the hypotheses and theories which have been advanced
on the subject, the appropriation of most of the
anepigraphic currency, and even of some of the inscribed
pieces, to British ground is little more than speculative.
The style and workmanship observable on the British
and Gaulish money are to be distinctly traced through
gradual stages of improvement, even so late as the
ninth century, in the coinages of certain parts of the
kingdom, particularly in the sceattas and stycas of
Northumbria ; and even in the lines of a penny of Offa
of Mercia we discern the archaic germ in a refined form,
while, on the other hand, some of the sceatta class, even
of early date, are carefully engraved and have fairly
good portraits. The artistic delineation of natural
objects, or the successful transfer to a die of a borrowed
type, was evidently beyond the grasp of the moneyers
employed by the reguli of those times, as it had proved
to the authors of the deplorable abortions produced in
Britain both before and after the days of Caesar.
One remarkable feature in the whole group of numis-
matic monuments of British or Celtic extraction is the
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