W. C a r e w H a z l i t t Coinage of the European Continent

298 The Coins of Europe
to avoid repetitions of particulars already furnished in our
Catalogues and Introduction.
It will probably have struck the attentive observer of this
description of record, that each region has in early times, and
down to the close of the old regime, carried and fondly preserved
on its coinage, tokens and memorials of popular belief,
local worship, and national observances and peculiarities.
This is
very true of Germany, with the primitive and quaint
symbolism, the intricate heraldic blazon, significant of the
union or division of families, the testimony to feelings and
pursuits, and the innumerable tributes to public and private
occasions which might have otherwise passed into oblivion,
inscribed on its multifarious currency during so many centuries.
The domestic and social annals of this great country could
not be written in the absence of such archives, which have
alike survived paper, parchment, and oral tradition. And is
not such the case with the whole area involved in
the present
undertaking ?
The imperial series of coins is broken in its continuity
by the periodical changes of dynasty. We have a rich
at first in silver or
assemblage and succession of money,
billon only, but eventually in all metals and denominations,
and in the lower values, belonging to the Carlovingian,
Saxon, Franconian, Suabian, Hapsburg, and Hohenzollern
lines. Many of the earlier productions of the denier type
have not only their points of numismatic and archaeological
interest, but are carefully and tastefully engraved. With the
fifteenth century, however, commenced the best period of
medallic art, to which we are indebted for some of the finest
and most attractive specimens forthcoming from any part of
the world.
It can scarcely be predicated of any items in this
division or category, when we have crossed over into the
sixteenth century, that they are extravagantly rare and with
;
a few exceptions, independent of date, condition is
always a
more insuperable difficulty and barrier than the actual
occurrence of coins. Among the German imperial thalers,
those of Maximilian I. and II., Matthias and Ferdinand II.,