THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

THE COIN MARKET
Here we get a total of £9,19,. 13s. 6d. for 129 pieces,
or rather more than £9 each ; but it may be said that
this amount is in excess of the average on a larger
number, where the picked examples do not so pro-
minently rule. At the same time, where quality is
cultivated and rarity is not excluded, it must be feared
that an ascending ratio of cost is the necessary
consequence.
Passing from hypothesis to absolute practical ex-
perience, a case may be noted where a representative
and miscellaneous cabinet in all metals, and in the
first state, amounting to upwards of 3000 items, cost
just under £2500, and where it has been calculated
that an additional £1500 would secure about 300
more specimens, including a few costly ones, so as to
constitute, at a total outlay of £4000, a distinctly
important collection, yet one not aiming at minor
varieties of type, mint, date, and other detail.
Moreover, outside such an estimate must lie in-
numerable coins in all series, principally accidental
rarities commanding factitious prices ; but it would
scarcely exclude anything of substantial value and
interest. To take an illustration from the English
series, it would comprise the Oxford, Petition, and
Reddite crowns.
Such a numismatic gathering would be approxi-
mately thus apportioned :
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