The Confessions of a Collector

by William Carew Hazlitt

The foreign houses court English support, and although they are fully aware that their clients at a distance wholly depend on trustworthy descriptions, they habitually misrepresent the circumstances, and expect the buyer to bear the brunt of their want of care or faith.

On the other hand, the neglect to convey the full or exact truth may often arise from ignorance or absence of taste and judgment. For I have observed the relative valuation of poor, tolerable, fine, and superb examples of a particular coin in the hands of this or that dealer. An English house would be glad to get rid of the former two categories at any figure, or would melt them; the third he would expect to reimburse him for the first and second; and the fleur de coin or proof he would hardly know how to estimate too highly. His foreign contemporary acts very differently; he has a scale, it is true; but between the worst and the best the financial distance is surprisingly small. For a distinctly bad example he asks you a franc, for a finer one, two, for a really first-rate specimen, four, and for a proof, six. In the case of one of the English sources of supply, the difference would be, that for the fine piece you would have to pay ten francs or their equivalent and for the proof not impossibly five-and-twenty.

This corroborates my statement, inasmuch as it shews that condition does not form so influential a factor abroad in determining values, as it does at home. The ‘numismatiste et antiquaire’ complacently schedules his property as assez beau, beau, très beau; all these notations are practically worthless; the experienced buyer knows beforehand what he will get, if he sends for the items; and it is wise to limit oneself to such prodigies of excellence as are shadowed under the terms f.d.c., superbe, and d’une beauté excessive. When you receive your parcel, you find that you have what Lincoln or Spink would offer as a fine coin. Schulman of Amersfoort had my commission in the sale of the local find a year or so since to obtain for me a gold zecchino of Ercole I., Duke of Ferrara, which the aforesaid averred to be ‘d’une beauté excessive;’ but a representative of the British Museum attended in person, and bought it over me. I afterward examined it in Great Russell Street, was very glad that I had missed it, and procured a better one in the Boyne sale for less money.

Condition is, after all, a relative term. It depends, 1. on the metal; 2. on the fabric. Gold and electrum are subject to ordinary wear and tear in common with the inferior materials used for coinage, and are more liable to clipping and sweating for the sake of the intrinsic value; but these products do not suffer corrosion; the only superficial injury which is noticeable has arisen from their deposit in certain soils, as in the sand of Egypt, where the effect is to blister or speckle the surface. The Russian platinum series appears to be sensitive to nothing but friction and use, and as it has not been an ordinary circulating medium, it occurs as a rule unworn.

As regards the lower metals, silver, copper, lead and tin, the money struck in these naturally follows the laws, to which they submit; but it also exhibits the results of imperfect preparation and alloy. The finer the silver, the less difficult it becomes to procure specimens in a satisfactory state; but scarcely any are exempt from oxidisation, which is apt in course of time to destroy the surface and the type. A peculiar tarnish, which it is not easy to remove, is found on particular coins—for example, shillings and sixpences of George III. 1816—and in metal of low standard an expectation of improvement from cleaning processes is generally illusory. The presence of chemical decomposition in copper, lead or tin pieces ought to be sufficient to deter the fastidious collector from entertaining them as purchases. Copper is heir to all sorts of ills: verdegris, rust, corrosion, and blisters, and where the defect has been of long duration, there is no really effectual remedy, as the recognised appliances may not succeed or, which is almost worse, may succeed only in part.

Then, secondly, the circumstances of issue, as in obsidional pieces and other money of necessity, have been so hurried and incomplete, that the discovery of a faultless specimen is impossible, and it is for the seeker to decide whether he will tolerate a flaw, which is inseparable from the acquisition, or dispense with it. I do not of course allude to the vendor’s expression, ‘fine for the coin,’ but to certain cases, where a real difficulty exists in every series, especially where billon prevails in currencies.

So much depends, first, on the skill or care, with which the amalgam was originally made, and, again, on the subsequent treatment of the example in passing from hand to hand. The coating of white solution in the older pieces has almost invariably disappeared; it is something, if the type is irreproachable.

There is a perpetual confusion in the catalogues between copper and mixed metal from the failure of the plating operation; but the value is an almost sure clue. For this reason the 12-grossi piece or fiorino of Monaco, 1640, should not have been sold in the Boyne auction, 1896, as copper. But certainly the cataloguer misinterpreted the G. xii. on the piece into 12 grana. That august Government was not in the habit of giving four shillings for sixpence. These plated currencies are a terrible plague to the numismatist, as 99 specimens out of 100 have parted with their white coats.

Where a really valuable and important coin is concerned, it is a subject for careful deliberation, whether it is best to let it pass, to keep it as it is, or to restore it. If the foreign matter is merely a loose incrustation or stratum, there is no great uncertainty or danger; where the mischief is more deeply seated, the risk of failure grows fearfully. I have a silver crown of Queen Elizabeth in almost perfect state, but as black as ink; I shrink from touching it. I applied ammonia to a first brass of one of the Roman emperors, and spoiled it, although the dirt seemed to be recent and tractable. A testone of one of the Medici of Florence was perfectly discoloured and disfigured; the most simple of all remedies acted like an enchantment; it emerged fleur de coin; and whatever objection may be said to exist to these experiments, the forbearance from employing chemicals, and the natural action of the atmosphere, gradually bring back the tone and the age.

Where one is able to meet with early billon money, which has miraculously escaped all deteriorating agencies, it is a real pleasure to contemplate the mixture of bloom and patina, which time has lent to a piece. But this can hardly occur, unless the proportion of fine metal is sensible.