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THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

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TERMINOLOGY<br />

Theohgos—The interpreter of the sacred rites held<br />

by the Greeks in honour of the gods.<br />

Tooled—A condition incidental to many coins, chiefly<br />

silver and copper, the surface of which has been re-<br />

touched with a graver or other sharp-pointed implement<br />

in order to produce the appearance of brilliant freshness.<br />

A large number of valuable pieces have been spoiled in<br />

this manner. Fr. Cisele.<br />

Touch-piece—A coin in gold or silver of the St.<br />

Michael and Dragon type, more frequently the former,<br />

worn by persons who had been touched by the sove-<br />

reign for the king's evil or scrofula. Dr. Johnson used<br />

to wear, or at least possess, a gold touch-piece which<br />

had been presented to him as a boy by Queen<br />

Anne.<br />

Tournois—The standard of Tours, one of the two by<br />

which the mediaeval money of France was chiefly regu-<br />

lated. We have the gros, denier, and maille tournois in<br />

the earlier currency, and the Hard, double, and denier<br />

tournois in copper in that of the sixteenth and seven-<br />

teenth centuries. We are afraid that the theory of the<br />

Oriental parentage of the gros tournois of Louis IX.,<br />

first struck very late in his prolonged reign, must be<br />

considered more than dubious, as a comparative exami-<br />

nation of the French coinage of the eleventh and<br />

twelfth centuries shews in a rudimentary and variant<br />

271

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