THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

THE COLLECTOR SERIES
gathered and applied by persons who, like the late Mr.
Babington, almost ostentatiously disregarded the state
of the pieces under examination ; and again, there is
no doubt that real and cultivated interest in the
pursuit has been first awakened by the accidental or
desultory acquisition in early life of a handful of old
coins selected from the familiar penny-box. The dis-
advantage which a practical and exact student incurs
by the employment of defective examples lies in the
inability to decipher the whole of the type; and this
becomes tantalising when the object of attention is a
supposed inedited variety.
An entertaining paper might doubtless be written on
the eccentricities of the less experienced in the present
branch of inquiry or recreation. Many numismatists,
who lived to outgrow the crude conceptions of their
novitiate, might, had they been of an autobiographical
turn of mind, have let us into some curious secrets,
some affecting only themselves, others where third
parties were concerned. Few collectors, it is probable,
have escaped without making mistakes, and without
falling into the toils of the wily expert, while they
graduate ; and it goes without saying that the majo-
rity, as they seldom prosecute the undertaking to the
end, seldom also attain sufficient discernment and mas-
tery to enable them to achieve a satisfactory result.
Instances are on record where simple gentlemen have,
Procrustes-like, clipped their coins to fit the piercings
in their cabinets ; where an entire collection of Roman
brass was submitted to treatment with brick-dust ;
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and