Any one, however, by limiting his ambition to one particular branch, may hope in course of time to form a cabinet the value of which will increase rapidly in proportion as it approaches completion.
This applies not only to Greek coins but to every class. Thus, for instance, there are collectors of English coins who confine their attention to the Anglo-Saxon period; others who will buy no coins later than the reign of Charles I.; and others, again, who only collect the copper money of the last two centuries.
The young collector who would not drift into unprofitable dilettanteism should therefore select some one series and keep to it, and it is chiefly with the view of assisting him to make his choice of a field to work upon that these pages have been written.
It will be well to form some idea, in the first instance, of the numerous series which are included in the general term of “Greek coins.”
Greek coins may be divided into three principal sections:—
A. Autonomous, i.e. coins issued by cities governed by their own laws.
B. Regal, i.e. coins struck in the names of kings.
C. Imperial, i.e. coins of Greek cities struck in Roman Imperial times, and with the head of the Emperor on the obverse.
And into eight chronological periods as follows:—
I. B.C. 700-480. Period of Archaic Art, ending with the Persian wars.