-letter of 13 Feb. 1648 (from Venice to Nijmegen): "Lamps. [p. 30] Hodierno die aliud epistolium a te mihi redditur, longe id profecto jucundissimum. Animos enim addidisti, ut cogitare pergerem de nummis illis praestantissimis comparandis; quorum non ita nuper in meis ad te literis memineram. In ipso quidem negotio nihil a me factum: nisi quod amicus quidam, primariae nobilitatis vir, aureorum catalogum plerorumque ad me transmiserit, monueritque argenteos aliquanto plures esse, quam ego numeraram. Sed de iis agere nunc longum foret.
Catalogus aureorum imperite satis factus, cum alium nonnunquam [p. 31] Imperatorem pro altero substituat, qui tamen in memoriam facile mihi revocet illorum, quos praesens contemplatus sum. Probe enim recordor viginti primorum Imperatorum numerum expletum fuisse, adeo quidem ut nonnulli, etiam ex rarioribus ter occurrerent. Rariores autem puto Galbam, Othonem, Vitellium, Pertinacem. Galbam semel tantum vidi cum aversa parte S. P. Q. R. OB C. S. qui inter argenteos satis vulgaris. Othones tres erant. Primus cum SECVRITAS P. R. quem argenteum ter quaterque habeo. Duo reliqui cum VICTORIA OTHONIS, sed diversi. Vitellii itidem [p. 32] tres. Primus cum L. Vitellio patre ab aversa parte, et ille quidem rarissimus (argenteum tamen vidi). Secundus cum VICTORIA AVGVSTI. Tertius cum tripode et inscriptione XVIR SACRORVM. Pertinaces itidem tres. Primus cum LAETITIA TEMPORVM. Secundus PROVIDENTIA DEORVM. Tertius AEQVIT AVG. Ex sequentibus Imperatoribus raros vix vidi praeter Diadumenianum. Erat et Plotina Trajani elegans et Consulares aliquot satis rari: inter quos Magnus cum filiis ab aversa parte, qui tamen mihi nonnihil suspectus, ut et unus ex Othonibus. Sed eam hujus rei peritiam non habeo, ut certi aliquid affirmare ausim.
Obtuli pro aureis istis supra pondus scutatos quinquaginta: hoc est dimidiam ejus partem pretii, quo venales fore opinor: quodque ego daturus sum. Non enim patiar elabi mihi hanc praedam, cum certus sim similem alibi me non inventurum. Ds. Simon D’Ewes, [p. 33] parenti meo amicus, et vir opulentissimus, quod nummis illis capiatur, recte facit, et sapere mihi videtur. Alios nummos Romae venales scio; alios etiam alibi: sed qui elegantia ad hos non accedant.
Nec desunt mihi in his oris amici, qui absenti etiam in comparandis antiquitatibus gratificaturi sint. Monuit hodie me quidam, aurificem in hac urbe esse, qui trecentos circi ter argenteos possideat, promisitque effecturum se, ut eos inde possim seligere, qui mihi hactenus desunt. Neapoli quos reliqueram periisse existimo. Incidi in Titum aureum, et comparavi, cujus ab una parte DIVUS TITVS ab altera fulmen stratum super aram IMP. CAES. TRAIAN. AVG . GER. DAC. P. P. REST. Nummus est elegans et rarus, ut omnes illi, qui restituti sunt ab aliis Imperatoribus.
(Today I received another letter from you, and it was very welcome, since you gave your opinion that I should hasten to consider buying the exceptional coins, which I mentioned not so recently in my letter to you. Nothing has been achieved by me in that business, except that a friend, a man of the first rank, has sent me a catalogue of most of the gold, and advised that there are somewhat more silver coins than I had reckoned. But it will now be a long business concerning them.
The catalogue of the gold coins has been done rather inaccurately, since it sometimes replaces the name of one emperor with another, but I can easily recall to my memory the ones which I examined when I was there. For I certainly remember that there were twenty filling out the number of the first emperors, so much that some might occur even three times amongst the rarer ones. The rarer ones were, I think, Galba, Otho, Vitellius and Pertinax. I saw only a Galba with SPQR OB C S on the reverse, common enough among the silver ones. There were three Othos. The first was with SECVRITAS P R, which I have three or four times as a silver one. The two others were with VICTORIA OTHONIS, but different. Again, there were three of Vitellius. The first with L. Vitellius the father on the reverse, and that is indeed very rare (though I have seen it in silver). The second with VICTORIA AVGVSTI. The third with a tripod and the inscription XVIR SACRORVM. Again, there were three of Pertinax. Of the following emperors I saw hardly any rare ones except Diadumenian. There was also a fine Plotina, wife of Trajan, and some fairly rare Republican ones, among them a Pompey the Great with his sons on the reverse, which nevertheless was somewhat suspicious to me, as also was one of the Othos. But I do not have the experience in this matter to dare to say anything for sure.
I offered fifty scudi over their weight for these gold coins. This is half the price for which I think they will be for sale; and it was what I am going to give. I will certainly not allow this prize to escape me, since I am certain that I will not find another one like it anywhere else. Mr Simonds D’Ewes, a friend of my father’s and a very wealthy man, is right to say that he is captivated by these coins, and he seems to me to be knowledgeable. I know other coins which are for sale in Rome, and yet others elsewhere, but they do not approach these in quality.
I have no lack of friends in these shores who will be pleased to buy antiquities even when I am away. One told me today that there is a goldsmith in this city who owns about three hundred silver coins, and promised that he would arrange for me to select from them the ones which I am so far lacking. I think the ones which I left in Naples are lost. I came across a gold Titus, and I bought it, which had DIVVS TITVS on one side and, on the other, a thuerbolt laid on an altar with IMP CAES TRAIAN AVG GER DAC P P REST. It is a fine and rare coin, like all of those ones which were restored by other emperors) (G. C. in de Betouw (ed.), De lucernis veterum reconditis in agro Neomagensium suburbano (Nijmegen, 1783), pp. 29-33).
