Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1888-11-21
RARE OLD COINS.
PIECES OF MONEY WHICH BRING
ALMOST FABULOUS PRICES.

An Interesting Talk with Wen Known
New York Collector-Money Used by
Era-Artis.ic Work.
Is coin collector a crankf The average
man thinks he is. To the uninitiated it
seems pure waste of time to occupy days,
months and even years, in the collecting of
battered ancient coins. Professor Edwin
Froissard, numismatist and archeologist
shed good deal of light on this subject,
while talking with areporter. The professor
IS good authority on numismatics. More
over, he was in communicative mood.
What makes people collect coinsl" said
the professor "Well, I'll tell you. In the
first place. they do so from natural desire
to preserve. In other words, they can't bear
to see anything destroyed. The second mo-
tive is feeling of curiosity, desire to be-
come acquainted with history And indeed
it is one of the best and most satisfactory
ways of doing so, for it brings US into con-
tact with the period to which the coins be-
long. The French have very appropriate
name for coins. They call them 'monu-
ultills, dlI SO tilbN dIt,
The professor was gradually becoming en-
Unused. The next moment he dived down
into small safe and produced box contain
ing innumerable envelopes, all filed with
coins.
PERFECT CONDITION.
'Now, here are some Egyptian coins of the
period of Ptolemy and IL These coins rep
resent phase Of Greek art.n
Professor Froissard here handed one of the
coins to the reporter 1t was about the size
Of silver half dollar, but much heavier
being Of pure gold. On one side were the
profiles of Ptolemy l and his wife; on the
reverse Pto!emy II and wife were repre-
sented. The engraving is very fine. The
professor then proceeded to explain.
These coins are made of the purest gold
They are worth $50 to a numIsmatist on ac
count of their rarity and perfect condition
The remarkable state of preservation il
which Old coins are found is due to the fact
that the anclents boarded their money, put
ting it away i'll secret places. hiding it il
vases, etc. To this very day coins are founc
| in the exact condition in which they wer,
| originally struck at the mints. The oldes
| coins which have ever been found wera stI7icl
| about 700 r. c. In other words, they ar,
over two thousand five hundred years old
| They were struck in the Greek cities of Asi,
| Minor from native and natural meta
| called electroid or pale gold.
This whitish green color is caused by th
| silver in it, The coins are plump or globula
in form, and r-udely stamped on one side witt
a design pertaining to the particular city
| The coinage of the Greek cities, states an,
| colonies soon assumed an immense impor
tance, each city or state having its own type
| 1t is the object of collector To obtain all tn
| types, as they are Of very high artistic meri
and exceedingly varied. There are very fes
collectors of Greek coins in America, bu
those we have are advanced and critical i
their tastes. There are Greek coins owne
| by our collectors here which are excessivel
rare and cannot be found even in Europea
museums No zone can form good collectio
of them without expending a small fortune
and yet the whole collection will not fill owe
two or three small trays know one ger
tleman who has such collection, and it
valued at $500
THE finest purely Greek coins belong [
the period extending from $50 B. C. to 800
c. This includes the reign OF Alexander Il
Great. The 'drachma' and 'di-drachml
were coined about 400 B. c. They are {
pure silver. The only emblem on them is
representation Of a grain of barley with IL
husk ON
FINE ENGRAVING.
Here Professor Froissard exhibited some
the odd looking pieces of money.
THE tetra -drachnla contains on one sic
the head of Persiphon, and on the reverse
splendid engraving of 'Biga,' or victoriol
chariot This is emblematic of victor
Around the profile on the diverse side is Il
inscription of the city to which the coin b
longs. In this case it is, as you see, Syracus
This is the exact condition in which the
coins were found in the excavations \
two of them are ahke-that is, cast from d
same dies, although they resemble each 9th
in general design. The coins of the time
Alexander the Great are remarkably fine
execution. On one side is the portrait Of Il
, helmeted head of Alexander On the rever
winged figure of Victory is represente
You will observe how remarkably fine d
engraving is, and its superiority to that
the Roman coins which will show you.
The latter are very interesting histc
ically. Their silver coins, unfortunatel
are only the size of dime, and there is co
sequently no scope for any design. They q
called 'denarii' Roman art was inferior
the Greek But the Roman bronze col
make up for the deficiency of the silver coli
They are very interesting. There are
larger number of collectors of these coiI
because they are not so rare, and are easi
mastered than the Greek. They are on
one-ffth as valuable on an average
1.-The largest bronze coins are about t
size of an American dollar They bear
engraving of tho head of the reigning Rom
emperor, and on the reverse side some
torical episode is pictured. OF course the
engravings are emblematic of some victor
They are not fgurative or mythological Ii
the Greek engravings. The earliest coins
Rome were of bronze, They were very lar
and massive. The largest weighs pou
and was called aes.' This was about 500
C. They gradually diminished in weigl
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