'I have for some-time design’d communicating to you a surprising account (at least itt is so to me) of some Medalls, wch my Lord Weymouth purchaced last winter in town; not knowing what credit to give to what I had heard of them, I wrote to my Lord, and had the following account– Two amongst them the most remarkable are these. A Medal of gold (weighing above twenty two ounces, the gold worth 5 ll. pr Ounce) of Joannes Palaeologus, Emp: of Constantinople; on the Reverse is written Opus Pisani Pictoris. This I believe you will allow may probably be a true one, Pisanll being famous for having engraved very large [ones?] of several great persons, & particularly one of that Emperour; besides that, my Lord assures me itt is not cast, and is of the finest gold, and not being very ancient, itt might easily be preserved. But that which startled me, was the account of an Antoninus, whose Diameter is 4 inches, half an inch and a 20th part of an inch; weighing 21 ounces 12 pennyweights at 4 ll. 10 s. per ounce. On one side are the heads of Antoninus and his Empresse Faustina; on the other, Cybele in a Chariot drawn by Lyons; in the exergue, AETENITAS AETERNITAS. My Lord sais that besides their being of so extraordinary a size, and of the finest gold, that of Antoninus & Faustina is most exquisitely stamp’d; the other by Pisani, rude in comparison of the former. He sais that my Lord Pembrook, who is the best judge he knows, examin’d them nicely, and declared he saw no marks of spuriousnesse; that they were certainly struck not cast, and concluded itt was not worth any one’s labour to counterfeit Medalls of that Metal and Value, for the bare keeping them 7 years would make the Author a loser. My Lord sais he agreed with me, that the size might make itt doubtful, having never read of any so large. Whose they were, he knows not, the Person who sold them being enjoyn’d secrecy; but he guesseth they come out of some great Cabinett. He bought att the same time above 40 more Gold Medalls, the finest and best preserv’d he ever saw, both ancient and modern, as of Galba, Ptolomy, Augustus, Marcellus, Domitian, Licinius, and many of the Greek Emperours. These are certainly a noble addition to my Lord’s Collection, though I know not yett what to think of his Antoninus; much is said of itt, my Lord Pembrook understands them very well, as does my Lord Weymouth; yett its bulk makes itt almost incredible that it should be ancient for where can itt have been so well preserved, and conceald. Mr. Evelin in his Book of Medals reminds me of a passage in Dr Burnett’s Letters, of his Travels in Germany ... [description of the finding of ‘a Cart-Load of Gold Imperiall Medalls’, some weighing ‘two pounds’ and of ‘rude manner of their sculpture’ and whose authenticity was discussed. Finch’s view is that they were perhaps made by ‘some Prince in Confederacy with or Tributary to the Romans.] And I should be apt to think my Lord Weymouths was one of these if I did not find itt described to be admirably engraved. – I should not have troubled you with my conjectures, which will but shew my ignorance; yett I could not but give you an account of them medals; for I think there is something curious, even in the bare description of them, from wch I doubt not but you will be able to judge especially if the Antoninus whether the Antoninus be true or false. [Goes on to offer ‘a parcel of such trash’, which ‘are all the duplicates I have met with since I saw you’, and adds descriptions, as recompense for troubling him, hoping that some may be tolerable’.]' (Nichols 1817-1858, vol. 4, pp. 95-6; Burnett 2020b, pp. 1031-2, 1021-2)
