THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

COLLECTORS AND COLLECTIONS
medal lie department 150 pieces wanting in Great
Russell Street, besides an Anglo-Saxon series of extra-
ordinary extent.
As regards the Sources of Supply, an intending
collector (although at first collectors are often uncon-
scious of being such) has to rely in the main on the
auction and the dealer, the former being a medium of
acquisition attended by many drawbacks and dangers,
inasmuch as the coins in a sale under the hammer are
seldom lotted in a way to suit private buyers, and as
the trade not unnaturally resents that class of com-
petition. It very greatly depends on the line chosen,
with what firms one should have relations ; but all the
leading European centres have their numismatic emporia,
and even in minor towns desirable coins are frequently
offered for sale. Just at the commencement any one
may provide himself very well in London ; later on,
according to the extent of his plan, he may find it
possible and convenient to correspond with Paris,
Madrid, Berlin, Vienna, Dresden, Leipsic, Frankfort-on-
Main, Munich, Amsterdam, Amersfoort (near Utrecht),
and other headquarters of experts and specialists. The
sooner, in case he proposes to work on more or less
ambitious lines, he acquires knowledge and judgment,
the less likely it will be that he will grow dissatisfied
with his hobby and out of humour with those who
have contributed to indulge it.
A new aspirant to numismatic honours cannot do
better when he has passed the "penny-box" stage,
unless he leaps at one bound into the saddle, having
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