The Confessions of a Collector

by William Carew Hazlitt

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.