Feu M. Asselin

[paulus_dinius]

Dear All

I would be grateful if anybody could help me with a bibligraphic reference:

Cohen regularly refer's to the sale of the Asselin collection, but I have been unable to gain anymore details.  Since it is referred to in the supplement to Cohen's 1st edition, I gather that this was a mid-19th century French sale.  I would like to be able to check some of Cohen's references, but have been unable to track it down - does anyone know whether it is availble online?

Many thanks in anticipation

Paul

PS. With the digitization of the BnF/Gallica collection making so many rare French numismatic works available, likewise the digital Heidelberg/Berlin collection for German and Austrian items, does anyone know whether there is a similar source for digital copies of Italian works?

Thanks

[curtislclay]

Apparently a private collection in Cherbourg, to which Cohen had access, we may assume, either by personal inspection or by correspondence, Asselin sending Cohen a list of the coins in his collection that were missing in Cohen's first edition. I am not aware of an Asselin Sale, but maybe it would be possible to find out what happened to Asselin's collection after his death, which seems to have occurred between 1868 and 1880. In vol. 7 of Cohen's first edition (1868), he always calls Asselin either just "Asselin" or "M. Asselin", e.g. p. XVII and p. 393, no. 15; whereas in the first volume of his second ed. (1880), Asselin has become "Feu M. Asselin","the late Monsieur Asselin", e.g. p. 86, no. 157.

According to Mattingly, BMC V, p. cclviii, and Carson, BMC VI, p. 111, Asselin was a "Collection, Paris". Presumably they deduced that location from the fact that Cohen cites Asselin, and Cohen lived in Paris. But Cohen himself says Asselin lived in Cherbourg, in his list of museums and collectors in the Supplement (vol. 7) of his first edition, published in 1868, to which you refer, p. XVII.

[paulus_dinius]

Many thanks Curtis

I had presumed that it was a sale that Cohen was referring to, but, if as you say, it was a reference to correspondance regarding a private collection then the we reach a dead-end.  I like to try and track down and confirm references to rare coins, especially as descriptions in 19th century catalogues can be vague or incomplete.

Thanks for all your help

Best wishes

Paul

[helvetica]

What you could you is look in a couple of old Revue Numismatique from that period and see whether he was a member of the French Numismatic Society - they often gave addresses.
Then have a look in the Cherbourg telephone directory to see whether there is anyone of that name, or whether there is a local museum.
Then call them and ask what happened to the coin collection.

I had to do something similar to find a unique coin for the new Lydian catalogs (still being formated at the publishers). Mentioned by Sestini, I finally tracked it down via the grandson of a coin dealer in Vienna to Prague museum..