THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

VALUE OF COINS
the United States ; and when one reflects that a private
cabinet can be little more than a selection of specimens,
it would appear to be very possible to reject examples
which are undesirable on this account, if the object is
simply to bring together a representative assemblage of
productions agreeable to the eye and the taste.
Taking the type as a leading inducement, there are
all the gradations from an absolutely different die
to infinitesimal minut'uv of detail in one or another
respect, constituting a variety. The prior ownership
or provenance is a third agency, which impairs the trust-
worthiness of prices, and necessitates caution in forming
estimates from coins surrounded by a sort of atmospheric
nimbus of the value of normal specimens. It is, to some
extent, with coins as it is with books.
The safest branch of early numismatics of every part
of the world to cultivate in a practical sense as a col-
lector is probably the copper and billon money ; for,
as the preservation becomes more generally a question
in the choice of coins, it will be more and more
apparent that productions in these two metals are
the most difficult to procure in fine state, and if
they occur in trouvailles, are almost always irre-
mediably damaged by corrosion. On the contrary,
through the extension of railway enterprise and other
causes, early money in the more precious metals
may be expected to arise as the fruit of excava-
tions, as it has already done in Affghanistan, Asia
Minor, Greece, Turkey, Italy, France, England, and
other parts of Europe and Asia, revolutionising prices
33 c