'My collection of medals is now in such a state, that I wish more to procure finer specimens than to enlarge the number; principally from having had a large collection (the Peralta) from Italy almost all of which were in bad or indifferent preservation, and many of the more scarce were false. The collectors here are more nice about preservation than they seem to be in Italy. What we call fine preservation is elegant and beautifull; what I believe you call bellissimo and conservatissimo. And we allow neither false medals to be mixed, for filling up the series, nor even those that are suspicious. We say that if a medal is but suspected, it is good for nothing, because it proves nothing. And in the foreign collections which have come over here, there have always been numbers of false medals which by the catalogue appeared to be genuine. Thence it is, that we cannot pretend to calculate, any thing nearly, to the real value of a collection, by a catalogue; especially as the value is to be made out, principally, from the smaller number, viz. the more scarce. The same medal, in your catalogue, might be well worth 10 guineas if genuine and fine, for which I would not give 10 pence if false, or 10 shillings if in indifferent preservation. And, among the Italians especially, men of the fairest pretensions to honour, will cheat in recommending their medals, as they will here in selling horses, Thence Mr. Dutens was cheated by a very much obliged friend in the collection he bought for me, and two other considerable collections which we have seen here from Italy turned out not worth more than the half of what was given for them. [fn from MacDonald 1899: As the draft originally stood, the reference to the “two other considerable collections” was much more explicit. It ran thus: “thence Lord Morton's collection was not worth above half of what he paid for it. And from your not having studied medals, your collection at the Museum turns out almost worth nothing, which is principally owing to the bad preservation or commonness of most of them. I know indeed that you put little value upon them; yet I expected that many of them would have been in Fine preservation because I had imagined that you bought for the workmanship and beauty of which you are an excellent Judge.”]
Mr. Jamineau’s collection, from his having studied medals, was a good one: and the value was thought, by our best judges here, to be determined, upon the whole, reasonably. He is so kind as to give me his good offices, and sent me a small list very lately. I only desired that they might be finely preserved, and left the price to his judgement.
Mr. Duane and Mr. Combe, both good judges, have calculated the value by the Catalogue and your account of the Preservation. They make it £511, without the Intaglio[s] and King[s], and 11 pieces of Italian gold money. But they allow that this sum may be at least £100 too much, and perhaps too little: too much, if the preservation should not come up to our Ideas, or if some of the coins be false; and too little for the contrary reasons.
We were more particularly at a loss to judge of the value of the Medallions; and of the coins of Magna Grecia, etc., which were only numbered, not specified.
Now, as Mr. Jamineau is a judge of Medals and no doubt one who would be glad to oblige you, and is so good as to assist me, could not you contrive that he should see them, so as to examine the principal and form a general judgement of the rest?
With these, the best Ideas I can communicate upon the subject, I will leave you to do whatever your Friendship to me shall tell you is best; and, for some time, I shall endeavour to keep as much money at Mr. Drummond’s as to be able to remit the Price to Naples upon demand, if you should buy them. Your own medals and Mr. Jamineau’s too were exceedingly well packed up. I should wish the 3 different metals to be packed up separately, that they might be weighed at the custum-hous as gold, silver, and copper; and I should chuse to ensure them at sea.'
(MacDonald 1899, pp. xviii-xix; Brock 2008, vol. 2, pp. 174-5, letter 317; Burnett 2020b, p. 1056 n. 429)
