'BL, Sloane MS 3407 also has a list (ff.77–81), which is entitled (on f.77r) ‘Valuation of Roman Silver Coins to be sold by Mr Arutine George an Arminian’, i.e. an Armenian merchant called Arutyn George.24 An Armenian merchant called ‘Arutyn George’ does, in fact, appear in a valuable contract for cloth made with the East India Company in 1700, where he is described as a ‘merchant stranger’, i.e. a foreign trader: surely the same man?
The list is of silver imperial coins (f.79r: ‘Med. Imperatorum de Argento’), and was written in Italian, either reflecting the use of Italian in the eastern Mediterranean, or perhaps suggesting that George had acquired the coins with their list from somewhere in Italy. On f.78v, we read, in a different hand and in English, ‘Observand: where the pecks are before the numbers such medals Sr Andrew ffountaine bought because cheap. Where pecks are made at the valuation of the medals such medals I have.’
The writing on ff.77 and 79 looks similar to Sambrooke’s in the other lists, so we should assume that this is a list of coins on offer to him, some of which he acquired. There is certainly a correspondence between the coins marked with a peck (dot) on the right hand side of the list and coins included in the later listing of Sambrooke’s Roman silver coins in BL Sloane MS 2954, ff.1–66, including some rare coins. In all, Sambrooke acquired some 104 coins of the Roman empire from this source, out of the 208 on offer. In his later catalogue of 1709, Sambrooke would attach a considerably greater value to almost all of the coins (sometimes by a factor of as much as three), confirming the view that the coins were sold ‘cheap’ to him. He and Andrew Fountaine had both got a bargain.'
(Burnett 2020b, p. 783)
