THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

VALUE OF COINS
Continental houses of marking their property for an
English or American meridian. But personal experi-
ence and judgment are the best safeguards in respect
alike to this branch of the pursuit and to others, as the
Greek, Roman, and British, where examples, especially
those of higher value, rest on their individual merits,
and dearness or the reverse are merely relative terms.
Another very essential point to be held in view is, that
it is a real disadvantage to a private cabinet to be
too complete, as in sales abundance cloys ; and it is
always better to wait opportunities of securing deside-
rata at reasonable prices than to jump at the first
offer.
The permanent and exclusive loyalty, not to a class
or country, which may be very well, but to a more or
less obscure series, is very apt to prove dangerous, inas-
much as there is the inherent accumulation of a body
of virtual duplicates even where scarcely two articles
are absolutely the same.
In the foregoing remarks there has been a prima
facie presumption that the dedication of an appreciable
amount of property to this purpose has not taken place
without some ulterior regard to reimbursement, since,
even where one does not engage in a pursuit with an
eye to profit, one may very possibly and very reasonably
do so with the expectation that a fair proportion, if
not the whole, of the outlay will return. This can
only be the experience when judgment and taste are
combined.
With coins it is as with books and every other species
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