In the
Vienna trays there is an empty ticket for a silver
quinarius of
Caracalla, one of only two known for the
type, with a note something like this on the back: "Dropped on 6 June 1933, and couldn't be found."
In museums usually only the curator will
handle the coin trays, bringing them out and carrying them back one at a time for the visitor. But when I sold my first
collection to the BM nearly 30 years ago, I was given access to their cabinets and asked to check which of my coins they already
had and which they lacked.
I managed to drop one of their coin trays! Luckily the BM uses wooden trays stored in the usual small coin cabinets measuring about 12" x 12" x 12", not specially made larger trays which could hold many more coins. The kindly curator (Andrew
Burnett) told me not to worry, and in five or ten minutes
had all of the coins and tickets back in what I
hope were the right holes!