THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

THE COIN MARKET
lative importance, or the Oriental class ; so that, these
contingencies provided for, the result will be what we
above mentioned, =£4000.
A purely Greek collection is not unfrequently a
special line, and when we enter on this field with
the plan before us of representing in a cabinet the
varied productions of all the autonomous regions
into which ancient Hellas divided itself, we quickly
discover that the chief difficulty lies in drawing a
line, beyond which we will not go, in regard to
specimens of given localities or examples of given
types.
No two Greek coins exactly correspond ; the varieties
arise from the methods of production, or from the use
of more than one die ; and it is obviously out of the
question for an ordinary amateur to regard these tech-
nical minutiae, unless he has a special object in view.
For we know that this series is capable of yielding
within its own limits an infinite number of fields for
study in the coins of a particular place, or even of
that place during a particular period.
Now let us suppose, not an enterprise of this very
restricted character, but one confined to Greek money
generally. The country which we are considering, with
its dependencies or colonies, included in ancient times
the following divisions, as Ave note elsewhere :
In Europe—
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