He gave me, too, a fine 5-lire piece of Napoleon I. 1808, struck at Milan. What a gain it is to be thought poor and deserving!
Many have been the good turns, many the valuable hints and items of information, and many, again, the pleasant hours, which I have spent in Bloomsbury Street. There is a huge black cat there, which is very friendly with habitual visitors; it used to make a practice of squeezing itself into Sir John Evans’s bag, and remaining there, while he stayed.
At Bloomsbury Street is one of my numismatic libraries of reference, to which I have long enjoyed free access. The custodian is not only well versed in coins and other curiosities, but is a reader and a repository of much entertaining literary and theatrical anecdote. I know that I take more than I give; but Whelan now and again consults me about an old book or a continental coin, which he does not happen to have seen.
I owed to my excellent acquaintance my introduction to Lord Grantley, whom I first met under his roof and from whom I have received kind help in my work and otherwise. His lordship, however, does not quite follow the same lines as I do. He is understood to be engaged in deciphering and elucidating the Merovingian or Merwing series—one, about which we have learned a good deal of recent years, and have a good deal more, I apprehend, to discover.
I knew the late Mr Cockburn of Richmond in consequence of having met him at Dr Diamond’s at Twickenham House. He was a Fellow of the Numismatic Society, and when I first became acquainted with him possessed a small cabinet. He hinted at an intention of discontinuing the pursuit, and even of realising. He next offered me the collection for £800. I had to let him understand that I had not so much money to spare; but I ascertained that he had been a buyer in bygone years, and had certain desirable items in his hands. I timidly inquired whether it would be possible to select a few desiderata, and Mr Cockburn agreed to that proposal. He had many coins in poor state, and many which were duplicates; and by concentrating my strength, such as it was, on the best things, I procured for about £70 nearly all that I wanted. Two Anglo-Saxon pennies which puzzled me a little, and as to which the British Museum authorities did not give me a reassuring opinion, I unfortunately missed. The residue Cockburn sold en bloc to Montagu, and when the latter parted with the said two pennies in a sale of duplicates, I had the satisfaction of seeing them printed in the catalogue in capital letters! They might have come to me at £2 the couple. I thanked the British Museum, and applauded its discrimination.
It appears, by the way, to be almost going too far to say that the portrait on the later groat and on the shilling of Henry VII. is the earliest resemblance of an English king as distinguished from a conventional representation; for surely the bust on the groats of Richard III. makes a distinct movement in the same direction; and even on the money of Edward IV. there is discernible a commencing tendency to realism.
Apart from the English coins, Cockburn had purchased in the course of time about eighty Roman second brass, which he insisted on selling in the lump, although I frankly told him, that very few would suit me. I gave him £5 for them, selected a dozen or so of the finest, and let Lincoln have the remainder for £4, 7s. 6d.—his own valuation.
Cockburn did not seem to sell for profit, and I admired his independence. He professed to pass on to me at cost price. For the sovereign of Edward VI. (4th year) he had paid £5 to Lincoln; it was f.d.c.; and for an equally fine Biga farthing of Anne he charged me on the same principle 26s. Other pieces, as the half-groat of Mary I. at £8 and the pattern shilling and sixpence of the Commonwealth by Blondeau at £16, struck me as dear enough. For eight varied cunetti in mint-state he charged 16s. His Anglo-Saxon pennies were not unreasonable; Harthacanut at £3 was the highest; a halfpenny of Edmund of East Anglia was judged to be worth £1.
Had not Montagu swooped down on the quarry, I might have left yet less behind me in a few weeks. I was snugly nibbling at it.
The name, which deserves on some grounds the greatest prominence in these numismatic memorials—that of Spink & Son—not inappropriately crowns the list of my auxiliaries and caterers. I cannot recollect the precise circumstances, under which I first approached the firm—then in Gracechurch Street only; but I quickly discovered its enterprising spirit and friendly sentiment. It was a house, which had not at that period—about 1886—long devoted special attention to the numismatic side; and through the possession of capital it rapidly came to the front. The stock of coins of all kinds grew in a marvellously short time only too varied and abundant, and under the auspices of Spink & Son, who behaved toward me as a person in humble circumstances with the utmost generosity and kindness, my collection developed in such a degree as to become almost serious, considering that this was another new outlet for my limited funds, and the largest of all. I had originally conceived the notion, which soon enough proved itself a chimerical one, that by investing my pocket-money to the extent of £150 or so over a course of years in these instructive relics of the past I should satisfy all reasonable requirements, and pose as the owner of a rather conspicuous cabinet. My riper conclusions pointed to £4000 as the minimum, under the most advantageous and careful management, for a representative gathering like mine in first-rate state, an amount equivalent with good husbandry to £10,000 under normal conditions, where folks exercise too little circumspection, or are in too great a hurry. The moral may be, that no man should mount a hobby in the dark. I have persevered, where many would have, I am sure, despaired. But I imagine that the motive for early relinquishment is not by any means the unexpected outlay so often as the distaste arising from errors of judgment and the annoying sense of imposition. The cost to myself in labour and thought has been quite equal to that in cash; but I have thus steered clear of the dangers, which beset inexperienced and desultory collectors. If you lean upon other people’s knowledge, you have to buy two articles instead of one.