This thesis has no immediate bearing on Spink & Son, who never urged me to purchase anything against my judgment, and were always prepared to exchange a coin, if I altered my mind about it. They certainly put aside all pieces likely to be of interest to me, but the interest was not invariably commercial. It might be an example, which I desired to register, just as I was in the habit of doing with Early English Books; and when I had taken my note, and did not care to invest, the bargain was open to the next comer.
A signal feature and facility in transactions here I have found to be the prompt exhibition with the marked price of every purchase and all purchases within the briefest possible interval. Coins are no sooner acquired, than they are placed on view with the exception of certain specialities, which are temporarily laid aside, till one or two clients have had the opportunity of seeing them. I have long rather undeservedly been on this favoured list; and I believe that no coin, thought to be in my way, has been sold during some years past, till I have refused it. I had the unexpected good fortune to meet here with the thaler of Nicholas Schinner, Bishop of Sion, 1498, absolutely f.d.c., and the Kelch thaler of Zurich, 1526, nearly as fine. The Zurich thaler of 1512, with the three decapitated martyrs, was reported from Germany, and alleged to be in mint state; but when it arrived, I identified it with the indifferent example in the Boyne sale, and of course rejected it accordingly. Such coins as these have a future.
I had put in my pocket, and taken home, just prior to the issue of the monthly catalogue, a gold Russian coin attributed to the reign of Ivan the Terrible, one of the numerous suitors of our Queen Elizabeth; but it was a century later. Still I might have liked it, had not a telegram from Russia arrived, and induced me to surrender the piece to some one, who evidently felt a peculiar interest in it. I was less considerate to the Prince of Naples, who is forming a private cabinet, and who ordered a rare grosso of the Roman republican era (13th century), which I had forestalled. It was fleur de coin, and I could not make up my mind to let it go, even to so exalted a personage. The most striking point is, that I had merely signified my wish to have the coin, and that Spink & Son might have sent it to the Prince, on the plea that I had not actually bought it.
I occasionally have the pleasure of making my good friends a slight return for their consideration. They had obtained at a sale for fifty shillings in a lot two examples of the very rare mezzo scudo struck in 1530 in the name of the Florentine Republic with the monogram of the Standard-Bearer for the year, just prior to the establishment of the Medici family in power. They shewed both to me, and permitted me to select the better for 30s. I then pointed out that at the Rossi sale in 1880 one had fetched £10, 5s., and recommended them to mark the remaining specimen £7, 10s., at which figure a foreign dealer jumped at it. At the Boyne sale in 1896 a third was carried to £8, 10s. by the same individual. The piece is remarkable as the heaviest denomination so far struck in Florence in silver.
Piccadilly, to which the Coin and Medal Department has been transferred, constitutes my second library of reference, as Spink & Son have spared no cost to bring together all the most valuable and important numismatic books and catalogues in all languages. This has formed a largely serviceable and welcome element in my connection with the firm, and has conferred on me without the slightest expense all the advantages attendant on the personal possession of the volumes. The English collector of foreign coins has, as a rule, as slight an acquaintance with these rich sources of information as I should have had in the absence of such facilities.
The monthly Numismatic Circular has tended in a direct and an indirect manner to draw Spink & Son into closer touch with holders and purchasers of coins everywhere; and the prospect of being able to examine, if not to acquire in all cases, an incessant volume of these interesting monuments seems to me likely to go on improving. I shall return to the subject of the Circular in a succeeding chapter.
A characteristic injustice was perpetrated on this firm by a divine, who honoured it with an order for a certain early English silver penny, and to whom, though a stranger and in the country, the coin was sent, packed up in the customary manner, on approval. The reverend gentleman reported in due course that it arrived at his address broken in half, and declined to pay for it. There was no absolute plea of negligence in the method of enclosure; the client authorised its transmission to him; and he did not even propose to defray the cost or part of it. The dealers took him before the magistrate, and the latter decided in favour of the client on the ground that the coin was a very old one, and had lasted long enough. Verily, as there are land thieves and water thieves, there are paid magisterial owls as well as unpaid.