Reply to Thread

Message:: [QUOTE="Sulla80, post: 7571603, member: 99456"]Any time discussion turns to how oddly collectors are behaving today, I find myself returning to this book from Spink AD 1903:  Roman Coins, <a href="https://archive.org/details/cu31924029779877/page/n5" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://archive.org/details/cu31924029779877/page/n5" rel="nofollow">Elementary Manual</a> by Francesco Gnecchi, translated by Alfred Watson Hands<ul> <li>"We have seen in the recent sale-rooms coins of extreme rarity allowed to be sold for relatively low prices on account of their deficient preservation, whilst common coins artistic in finish, and in good preservation were competed for at hitherto unheard-of prices"  </li> <li>"For a perfect Sestertius of Galba, Vitellius, Antoninus, Pertinax, which would be in the ordinary condition valued at 8, 80, 4, 150 lire, one would have to pay 100, 300, 150, 1000 lire, and a bronze medallion in really mint condition would easily fetch at a sale some thousands of lire whatever its name or valuation...I hope the mention of these luxurious and ruinous prices will not discourage any of my readers; they should rather have judgment enough to behold such a mirage without aspiring to grasp it, at any rate for their consolation I would say that a collection may be made in many ways, and one may have a collection suitable to any purse"  </li> <li>"The first collectors did not lay much stress on the state of preservation of their specimens, to which in the present day, very great, and I might say excessive importance, is attached."  </li> <li>"Among a hundred individuals who begin to collect one can count on ninety at least setting to work on a general collection, and that because nearly all are ignorant of the vastness of the material before them."</li> </ul>To me it seems - not much changed in 118 years...[/QUOTE]

Log in or Sign up

Reply to Thread

Useful Searches