Chats on Old Coins

Contents: Preface. 1. The collector's aim. 2. The story of coinage. 3. Coins of ancient Greece. 4. Coins of ancient Rome and the republican era. 5. The coins of the twelve great caesars. 6. Roman currency under the later emperors. 7. Early British and Romano-British. 8. The saxon period. 9. Norman and plantagenet. 10. Coins of the lancastrian and 'Yorkist Kings. 11. The tudor period. 12. The stuarts. 13. The commonwealth, and after the restoration. 14. The house of hanover. 15. Victoria, Edward VII, and George V. 16. Regal copper coins. 17. British colonial currency. 18. Ireland and the Isle of man. 19. Coins of Scotland. 20. American coinage. 21. Seventeenth-century tokens. 22. Eighteenth-century tokens. 23. Nineteenth-century tokens. Bibliography. Index.

From the Preface: 'Numismatic literature has hitherto been prepared for the specialist, and adapted to those who wish to posses in categorical form a complete--or as nearly so as the writer's knowledge enabled him, to make it--list of the coins and medals of the period under review. Some books have been written for the beginner and those who at small cost were desirous of obtaining an elementary account of the particular branch of coin collecting in which they were interested. Few attempts, however, have been made to provide in condensed form a book dealing with the obsolete currencies which have, throughout the world's history, been used by its most prominent nations.

In this little work the author has endeavoured to "skim the cream" off the heavier and, to some, drier problems of numismatology, and to present in acceptable "popular" form the more interesting facts which should be known to every collector.

Among the branches of study touched upon are those associated with the coins of the ancients most prominent in European history. The beauties of Greek coins and Roman medallions are strongly in evidence. The dawn of civilization as seen in the early currency of Britain is pointed out, and step by step the story of the coinage of Great Britain and her dependencies--the Greater Britain beyond the Seas--is unfolded.

Recognizing not only that the blood-relationship of the freeborn sons of American soil makes the coinage of the old world which their forefathers handled interesting to them, but that the coins used by dwellers in the United States and in Canada are valued by English collectors, I have given prominence to American currencies.

The British regal coinage has so frequently been supplemented by token issues, which have for a time become a part of the national currency, that I have included in "Chats on Old Coins" a few chapters on tokens."