Coins--Origin of My Feeling for Them--Humble Commencement--Groping in
the Dark--My Scanty Means and Equally Scanty Knowledge, but Immense
Enthusiasm and Inflexibility of Purpose--The Maiden Acquisition Sold
for Sixteenpence--The Two Earliest Pieces of the New Departure--To
Whom I first went--Continuity of Purchases in All Classes--Visit to
Italy (1883)--My Eyes gradually opened--Count Papadopoli and Other
Numismatic Authorities--My Sketch of the Coins of Venice published
(1884)--Casual Additions to the Collection and Curious
Adventures--Singular Illusions of the Inexperienced--Anecdotes of a
Relative--Two Wild Money-Changers Tamed--Captain Hudson--The
Auction-Thief--A Small Joke to be pardoned.
I started as a numismatist by the merest accident in 1878, at the precise
juncture when, owing to the sudden death of Mr Huth, I was concluded by my
well-wishers to be on the brink of ruin. My son, who was then quite a
little fellow, had had a first-brass Roman coin presented to him by a
gentleman, whose intentions were excellent; and shortly after a relative,
who had kept by him in a bag a number of 'butcher's' pennies of George
III. and a few other miscellaneous pieces, and who was profoundly anxious
to throw them away, made a free gift of the whole collection to the same
recipient. I was naturally led to examine our _treasure trove_, not by the
light of experience of coins, of which I had absolutely not a tittle, but
by that of my knowledge of collateral and analogous matters, in which
several years' training had developed certain conclusions; and I soon
formed a private estimate of the twofold donation unfavourable to the
judgment of the late proprietors.
The youthful owner himself was not the master of any definite views on the
subject. There was the bag and there its contents; and they remained for
some time inviolate, while I was deliberating and instituting inquiries at
intervals, myself a sheer tyro. I believe that in my strolls about the
suburbs I added to the cabinet without greatly improving it. Mr Huth was
no more; and the future was not reassuring. My early acquisitions went
many to the shilling. I was not more than a lesson or so ahead so far of
my boy and his kind friends. Of works of reference, despite my
acquaintance with books, I knew nothing. Of those, who could have put me
on the right track, I was equally ignorant. I do not think that I had
heard of such an institution as the Numismatic Society. It was new ground,
and I stood on the edge of it contemplatively, bag in hand--the bag not
even strictly my own--with a wavering sentiment and with decreased
resources--resources likely to decrease yet more. One morning chance led
me, as I passed, to linger at the window of Messrs Lincoln & Son in New
Oxford Street; and after a pause I went in. The result was momentous in
this sense, that I saw at the shop mentioned a 'butcher's' penny, which
bore the same relation to the inmates of the bag as an immaculate copy of
a book or a faultless piece of china bears to the most indifferent
specimens imaginable; and I handed half-a-crown to Lincoln for his coin,
which I took home with a rather full heart. We compared notes, and I
privately meditated a _coup_. A few days after, our sixteen 'butcher's'
pennies and sundries just realised what I had given for the cornerstone of
a New Collection; and I may say that at a distance of nearly twenty years
I yet keep that piece, which has become a very difficult one to procure in
unexceptionable state--far more so than the twopence of the same type and
date.
My son and I thus acquired an assemblage of numismatic monuments
represented only by an unit. But it was not very long, before I revisited
Lincoln's, and doubled the collection at one bound by buying a half-crown
of Queen Anne for eight shillings and sixpence. These two were my earliest
investments, when I seriously began; but I must explain that I was not
only fettered by lack of courage and the apprehension of contracted means,
but by the fact of being in partnership with my son in the venture. His
pocket-money and savings partly contributed to the revised and enlarged
scheme; and in the earlier stages I am sure that progress was hesitating
and slow. In the end, the estate of my partner was swallowed up; and
whatever funds were required came from the other member of the firm.
In the case of what was a pure hobby at first and long after its original
commencement, it is impossible to lay down the exact chronological lines
or the order, in which certain coins or series were acquired. The English
and Roman long united to monopolise my attention; my son ceased, as he
grew older, to manifest an interest in the subject; and I found myself
invested with a paramount discretion, held in check only by very slender
means of exercising it. I may as well add here, that I deemed it best,
under the circumstances, to return the amount, which the retiring sharer
in the concern had sunk in purchases; and I was thus at liberty to do as I
pleased.
I am speaking of a period, which seems nearly prehistoric. It was about
fifteen years since, that I took over the entire responsibility in this
affair, and found myself in possession of coins of various kinds, chiefly
selected at the emporium in New Oxford Street, and representing a
considerable outlay. I had discerned the errors of others in collecting,
but I had not failed to commit one or two myself. I conclude that it is a
very usual oversight on the part of the novice to neglect to measure his
ground, and lay his plan, beforehand; it was so with me; I bought rather
at random coins, medals, and tokens; and even under these wide conditions
I vaguely calculated that from £150 to £200 would place me in possession
of a cabinet, capable of vying with most of those in existence.
It has been from no wish to exaggerate the importance of the initiative
taken in 1878 under a casual impulse, that I have written down the
foregoing particulars. But as I have uninterruptedly persevered from that
date to the present in enlarging and improving the collection, and in
communicating the fruits of my researches to the public, it appeared worth
while to put on record the facts connected with the formation and
development of the new taste. There have been men, who have gained a rank
as numismatists far higher than any to which I can aspire or pretend,
whose beginnings at least were not less humble and not less fortuitous.
When I affirm that a single season suffices to exhaust the patience or
enthusiasm of many an amateur, it will supply some indication of my
earnestness, when I state that at the end of three years I had barely
emerged from my novitiate. I still retained my loyalty to Lincoln, but I
made occasional investments elsewhere. I had abandoned the ambitious
notion of comprising medals and tokens in my range, but on the other hand,
through the miscellaneous nature of Lincoln's stock and his large
assortment on sale of foreign coins, I conceived the possibility of
admitting a few chosen specimens of the various Continental series. I
resembled a ship without a compass; I had never had under my eyes any
guide to this family of monuments, and I could only estimate its extent
and cost from the selection put before me. How necessarily imperfect, nay
fragmentary, that was, I did not learn till long afterward. The foreign
section of the New Oxford Street stores constituted my Continental side in
its first state, not so much as regarded condition, as variety and
completeness. For somehow my furnishers began to understand my views
touching character and preservation, and although I have throughout my
career felt bound to change specimens from time to time, I apprehend that
the preference for fine coins set in with me unusually early, and saved me
from a good deal of loss and annoyance.
Under the auspices of the same firm I extended my lines to Greek coins.
Lincoln happened to have placed on view about 2000 pieces in silver, and I
took all that struck me as being within my standard--I forget how few.
About the same time I added to them some in gold and copper. I
thenceforward, during many years, was in the habit of selecting from the
series immediately in hand whatever interested me, and this is another way
of saying that my possessions were growing considerable. My grand
safeguard was my peremptory principle of rejecting everything, no matter
how rare or otherwise valuable, which did not rise to my fastidious
qualification; and the greater the choice submitted to me, the more
stringent became my application of the rule. It was in pure self-defence.
My pocket-money, so to speak, was extremely limited; and I thus closed the
door against a deluge of rubbish or of mediocre property. I laid down for
my own government the paradoxical maxim, that if a poor man buys at all,
he can afford to buy only the finest things. That is to say, he should
never acquire what does not represent the outlay or, if possible, a profit
on it. I felt myself sinking deeper and deeper into a quicksand, and I saw
no other practicable outlet in the event of realisation.
I farther satisfied myself that it was highly imprudent to engage in the
purchase of Greek and Roman coins at inflated quotations, especially Greek
silver and Roman second and third brass, in the face of the continual
finds, which forced the prices downward, and reduced a specimen, perhaps,
from £20 to £2 at a jump. There is absolutely no security for the buyer
within these lines, and I make it my policy to wait, and complacently look
on, while lots are adjudged to others at figures beyond my estimate. In
the Greek copper and the Roman first brass in fine patinated state, one is
tolerably safe. Of all the series I am fondest of the former, and indeed
any early money in that metal, whether classical or continental, is my
weak point, provided that it is as nearly _fleur de coin_ as may be. An
immaculate first brass of one of the more interesting Augusti or (better
yet) _Augustæ_, with a picturesque reverse, rejoices the eye; and it is no
prejudice to it, if it is rare!
I remember that it was not long, before I rebelled in my own mind against
the not uncommon practice of placing the Greek and Roman money on a
footing of equality, and appreciated the discernment of those, who limited
their researches to the former. For it struck me that, if you take out of
the reckoning the republican series, which is really Hellenic in its
origin and style, and a few early aurei and first and second brass
recommendable by their personality or their interesting reverses, there is
not such a great _residuum_ of solid importance left behind. The mere
rarities of the later period I do not count; they correspond to the Greek
coinages, when the latter merge in the Asiatic types. But of the Greek of
the fine and finest epochs alone there is more than enough to satisfy and
impoverish half a dozen such collectors as myself, if we merely selected
our favourites.
I had added to my cabinet a tolerably large number of foreign specimens,
when I paid a short visit to Italy in 1883. Five years had passed since
the episode of the butcher's pennies, and since the day when I made my
maiden purchase of Lincoln, and he with commendable discretion extended
his hand for the money, before he surrendered the coin. We have learned to
understand each other a little better, and he does not object to a running
account.
I did not enjoy the opportunity of making exhaustive researches; but the
localities, of which I gained experience, yielded little enough for my
numismatic purposes. The Italian impressed one with the notion, that he
not merely laid no stress on preservation, but did not comprehend to the
full extent what it signified. I have a remembrance of having recrossed
the Channel with a handful of examples, which I might better have left
behind me, and which I have long since renounced. Some came from Milan,
where I met with a most urbane individual, whose stock was principally
Milanese, and very poor Milanese, too. At Venice I ascended a very dark
and mysterious staircase leading out of the Piazza, with the highly
unpleasant sensation that a poniard or a trap-door might be in reserve for
me, when I was ushered by my conductor into an apartment, where I was
invited to sit down and inspect sundry trays of gold coins. But the light
was so dim, that I could not distinguish the state, hardly the type, and I
ignominiously retired, putting down two _lire_, by way of footing, for a
silver _teston_ of Henry IV. of France.
Otherwise there was exceedingly little of any note, so far as my
observation went. I obtained a coin or two at a depôt on the Piazza and
one or two knick-knacks at another, where there was the usual apocrypha
about the total ruin of the seller by the acceptance of rather less than a
moiety of the original demand. Venice is in this respect slightly
Oriental. Sir Robert Hamilton gave me an entertaining account of his
experiences at Constantinople, where he was asked the equivalent of a
guinea for something, and at the conclusion of a protracted negotiation,
crowned by a cup of coffee, the price descended to the clown's ninepence.
It was three-and-twenty years, since I had posed as the historian of the
Republic, and the sparing degree, in which I had been in the meantime
enabled to secure specimens of its coinage, partly prepared me for the
apparent difficulty of procuring this class of money in good state. I
brought away from Venice itself absolutely nothing beyond a silver
_soldino_ of the fourteenth century doge Giovanni Dolfino; but at Milan
and Bologna I succeeded in finding a couple of early gold ducats. I did
not visit the Museum, nor was I so fortunate as to find Count Nicoló
Papadopoli at home.
I scarcely recollect how it happened; but I had heard of the Count as a
prominent Venetian numismatist, and I threaded some of the less agreeable
thoroughfares of the city, including the clothes-market, in search of his
palatial residence on the Grand Canal. Both the Cavaliere his secretary
and himself were absent; but I left my address, and ever since he has
honoured me with his interesting and valuable publications on the theme,
which he so well loves.
A jeweller in Bologna, of whom I took two or three pieces, offered me a
double gold crown (_doppio di oro_) of Giovanni Bentivoglio II., the type
without the portrait, for 150 _lire_. It seemed to me too dear. I was
right. A year or two after, I got it in Piccadilly for less than half.
Some one referred me to Schweitzer's exhaustive work on the Coins of
Venice, and, Count Papadopoli sending me periodically his numismatic
labours, I was encouraged to draw up the sketch of the 'Coins of Venice,'
which appeared in the _Antiquary_ in 1884, as part of a scheme for
reproducing my History on an improved basis.
The advance of the subject by stealthy degrees to the foreground and to a
conspicuous place in my studies and employments, had its agreeable and its
serious aspect. It was a pursuit, which consumed time, and while it
entailed endless outlay, yielded no return. Still I had such a genuine
relish for it, that I did not allow myself to be disheartened. It may give
some idea of my disinterested, perhaps enviable, ardour, if I mention that
I revisited Milan, at the expense of a long detour, to get a silver coin
of one of the Medici, which I considered on second thoughts worth having
at nine _lire_. It served me a good turn, for when a London dealer seemed
disposed to shed tears on discovering that an assistant had sold me a
similar piece for the same money (7s. 6d.), I exhibited my prior purchase,
and he was consoled. It exemplifies the singular nicety of appreciation
among the experts, that a third and fourth came to me at a subsequent date
at 8s. each. With others I have not been quite so happily placed. A party
bought a _scudo_ of Ferdinando I. dé Medici, 1587, in his cardinal's
dress, in a lot at a sale, and gave it up to me as a favour for 15s.,
which made him a present of the residue; I was the obliged, and said not a
word. He assured me that the other items were worthless, yet he did not
throw them in. I bowed and withdrew. I have ever found it so.
All my successive departures in this as in other doings have depended on
chance. Both at home and abroad I have often stumbled unexpectedly on the
means of filling a gap, and have quite as often congratulated myself on
the command of just knowledge enough to avoid mistakes and snares. Not
always. For I once found myself at St Peter's, Guernsey, with nothing to
do, and visited so often the only place in the town, where there was any
semblance of coins, that I felt bound to pay my footing, and gave 10s. for
a silver London penny of Ethelred II.--a very fine specimen, but a very
common piece. I subsequently bought another of a different mint in London
for 4s. I added the Guernsey acquisition to my travelling expenses, with a
private determination to avoid for the future these pitfalls.
I never committed myself very seriously. At Brighton, strolling about I
fell in with a Jew, who had a very fine early rupee, which on reference to
his scales he estimated at eighteenpence. I bought elsewhere a greater
rarity--a double rupee of the last century--for four shillings. One of the
finest Anne farthings of the common Britannia type, 1714, which I have
seen, was the fruit of a visit to a depôt in Hastings, and the demand for
it was not unreasonable--twelve shillings. At a corner shop in
Bournemouth, the Hebrew proprietor was from home; but his consort waited
on me. 'Any old coins, madam?' 'Well, no,' she thought not--yet, stay,
she would _shew_ me a shekel or two--family relics, and not for sale. She
retired, and presently produced them. I told her that they must be of
great and peculiar interest to her and her husband, and I disappointed
her, I think, by not seeming eager to possess them. She muttered something
_sotto voce_ about seven guineas; whether that was a figure at which she
would risk Mr ----'s displeasure by parting with each or all of the
heirlooms, I do not know. They were all false.
The shekel, which belongs to my collection, once had a rather startling
adventure. An acquaintance, a clergyman of the Establishment and an
University man, asked leave to see it. I handed it to him, and as if he
had cabman's blood in his veins, he instantaneously placed it between his
teeth. A significant gesture from me arrested his action. On taking his
farewell he mentioned that he should shortly send one of his sons to look
through my coins. I bowed, and I subsequently declined the proposed honour
in writing. How could I tell that the teeth of the offspring might not be
sharper than those of his intelligent papa?
The ignorance of the average man in everything, which does not concern
his immediate calling, is well-nigh inconceivable. I held in my pocket an
unusually well-preserved example of a bell-metal piece of the First French
Revolution, when I was calling on a friend, who by training and descent
should have acquired a tincture of conversance with such matters. He paid
me the compliment of begging to be permitted to see the coin, eyed it for
a moment, and then threw it across the table to me.
A relative, who was distinguished by his fulness and variety of
information, and who, if he sinned, did so in the direction of not
under-estimating the few relics which he personally owned, used to be fond
of telling me, that he possessed a complete numismatic history of the
Revolution in France, and when I appeared in the first instance curious on
the subject, he displayed a handful of defaced copper or bell-metal pieces
which, had they been better, represented only an instalment of a very
large series.
The same gentleman had similarly acquired in the vicinity of Leicester
Square at prices, which struck him as favourable to the buyer, some very
rare and desirable examples of Greek numismatic art, including a
Syracusan medallion or dekadrachm. On being informed with suitable
delicacy that his purchases were forgeries, he was almost equally balanced
between a sentiment of wrath against the vulgar broker, who had swindled
him and a stealthy suspicion that his informant desired to wheedle him out
of really valuable possessions.
He cherished some old halfpence of the early Georges, which he found in
his boyhood in a hollow tree in Kensington Gardens. So far, so good. They
were not coins; it was a strictly personal association. The interest died
with him.
But two of the drollest accidents, which ever happened to me, succeeded
each other on the same morning. I entered a money-changer's in Coventry
Street, and inquired for old coins. The bureaucrat was as short in his
address as he was in his stature. 'What did I want?' 'I did not know till
I saw them.' 'He had no time to waste on such matters.' I apologised for
my intrusion; he looked at me, and then he pushed a bowl of money toward
me. In a minute or so he joined me in a search, and we somehow entered
into conversation. He found that I was literary. 'Had I ever heard of
Hazlitt's _Life of Napoleon_? It was his favourite book.' I handed him
ninepence, shook hands with him on the strength of his revelation, and
departed, labouring to look grave.
I had no sooner emerged from that singular experience, than I encountered
another. A party in Wardour Street had a similar inquiry put to him, and
he laid before me an assortment of metallic monuments, which I
investigated for some time without meeting with a solitary item worth
pricing. On intimating so much in a polite manner, the owner impressed me
with a persuasion that he intended to spring over the counter, and seize
me by the throat; but I met the crisis by demonstrating the impossibility
of purchasing duplicates and of always finding _desiderata_ even in the
choicest stocks; and his phrensy began to abate. He seemed a decent
fellow--a watchmaker by his calling; and I pulled out my watch, and
invited him to examine it. It required cleaning and regulating. 'Clean it,
and regulate it, then,' said I, 'and I will call for it in ten days.' We
parted on the best terms.
I have certainly obtained in the by-ways here and there, at home and
abroad, occasional plums. I owed to a silversmith in London my £5 piece
of Victoria, 1839, with a plain edge, without the Garter, and with the
original reading. It cost me £8. 5s. But I have slowly arrived at the
conclusion that the orthodox merchant is the most satisfactory on the
whole--the safest and the cheapest.
When I was a boy, the Kenneys introduced me to Captain Hudson, a retired
East India commander, who resided in one of the best houses at Notting
Hill, while that locality was sufficiently agreeable and select. Hudson
stands out in my retrospective view as the donor of some very special
Guava jelly, and as the proprietor of a £5 piece of Victoria--of course of
1839. He shewed it to me as a great compliment one day, and it made me
look upon him as a personage of unbounded wealth. Yes; it was very good on
his part to let a little lad like me take it in his hand. I often think of
Captain Hudson, and wonder, whether my specimen and his are the same.
The auction-thief is only too familiar a feature in the sale-rooms, where
portable objects of value are exhibited. At one establishment there is a
standing notice, inviting information as to more or less recent larcenies
of property, which it becomes the privilege of the auctioneer to make good
at a fair assessment. Books are perhaps the commonest and safest game, as
the room is more frequently, prior to the commencement of the sale, left
to take care of itself. But coins have been occasionally appropriated by
enthusiasts, whose impatience precluded them from waiting, till the time
came. One person used, during quite a lengthened period, to select with
unerring judgment from every sale in Wellington Street the best lot, and
when he was at last detected, his genuine ardour was shown by the fact,
that the whole of his selections were found at his residence intact. It
was really hard on the offender to place before him treasures, for which
he might on demand have been prepared to sacrifice his little finger, and
expect him to incur the risk of some one else carrying them off, unless he
secured them beforehand. The firm dealt tenderly with him--no doubt, on
this ground, and merely offered him a piece of advice, which was that he
should not throw himself again in the way of temptation. The delicacy of
the circumstances was appreciated by Messrs Sotheby and Co.
At one of the coin-sales in Wellington Street four successive lots were
purchased by Lincoln, Rollin, and _Money_, the last a term applied, where
cash is paid down at the time. Lincoln bought the second as well as the
first, and in the catalogue the entry was _Do._ Some one reconstructed the
sequence, and made it run:
_Lincoln
Do
Roll
In
Money._
I crave pardon for this undoubted ineptitude.