THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

UNITED KINGDOM
began, and when it terminated. It is of course easy
to trace in the rude and often amorphous pieces, which
presumably belong to the period between the latest
money of absolute British fabric, and the sceatta and
styca era, the old influence in the grotesque and bar-
barous designs and the primitive fabric ; but there is
nothing beyond guesswork to help us in ascertaining,
even approximately, the date at which a marked im-
provement on the best style of the inscribed British
currency set in, or the causes of such a progress and
change. Of the greatest power in the world, the
history down to the middle of the sixth century is the
most obscure from every point of view, when we have
exhausted the little that is trustworthy and have dis-
carded all that is empirical or false.
Of the commercial value of British coins it is difficult
to speak. The inscribed series is the most esteemed.
The pieces in base metal, copper, and tin are abundant.
The gold money with Cunob and Boduoc is easily
obtained. That of Verica, Tasciovanus, and some of the
less familiar names is rarer. But the coins of Verica, of
which one at least is reputed to have been struck in
Gaul, have become commoner by reason of finds.
Of the Anglo-Saxon money it must be predicated
that the objects themselves are less interesting, from
their general destitution of all claims as works of art,
than the historical associations which they possess, and
in many instances exclusively preserve. With very few
exceptions, the symptoms of progress among the earlier
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