Chapter XVI

The Question of Condition considered More at Large--How One
most Forcibly Realises Its Importance and Value--Limited
Survival of Ancient Coins in Fine State--Practical Tests at
Home and Abroad--Lower Standard in Public Institutions and
the Cause--Only Three Collectors on My Lines besides
Myself--The Romance of the Shepherd Sale--Its Confirmation
of My Views--Small Proportion of Genuine Amateurs in the
Coin-Market--Fastidious Buyers not very Serviceable to the
Trade--An Anecdote by the Way--The Eye for State more
Educated in England than Abroad--American Feeling and
Culture--What will Rare Old Coins bring, when the Knowledge
of Them is more developed?--The Ladies stop the Way--
Continental Indifference to Condition--Difficulties
attendant on Ordering from Foreign Catalogues--Contrast
between Them and Our Own--_D'une Beauté Excessive_--
Condition a Relative Term--Its Dependence on
circumstances--Words of Counsel--Final Conclusions--Do I
regret having become a Collector?--My Mistakes, 331

Confessions of a Collector