THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

THE COLLECTOR SERIES
found in Cohen or in Stevenson ; the former should be
consulted preferably, but in all cases opinions are safer
as to the scarcity than as to the price. The valuation
is apt to be influenced by circumstances.
Vast as is the field occupied by the Greek and
Roman coinages, it is insignificant in comparison with
that which the Continental or Modern Foreign Series
covers, and this fact partly arises from the extra-
ordinary multiplication of coin-yielding centres under
the feudal system. A reference to the " Coinage of
the European Continent" will readily shew how the
subdivision of political authority and the gradual rise of
numberless seigniorial fiefs to great power and affluence
naturally led to the concession of monetary privileges
and the establishment of mints over every part of the
country, and to a competition between the different
secular and ecclesiastical dignitaries for superiority in
the splendour of their money, which frequently eclipsed
that of the Crown. It is literally impossible within
the compass of a few pages to do more than faintly
indicate the principal objects of attention and research
among the foreign numismatic productions of the
earlier epochs ; nearly all are specified by us in our
former work ; we follow the order of sequence there
observed :
—
Bavaria . . . The
Saxony . . . The
heavy gold coinage of Maximilian I. of
Bavaria, 1598.
gold money of Saxony, 15th and early
16th centuries.
Brunswick . . The bracteates and widespread silver pieces of
Brunswick -Luneburg.
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