Page 12 - The De Wit Collection of Medieval Coins, 1000 Years of European Coinage, Part III

PREFACE

The preface of the auction catalogue 121 describes how I came to collect medieval coins. That
really leaves me with one thing to explain in the catalogue of the third and last part of my
collection, namely, what led me to give up collecting coins.

The main reason is obvious: age! When I started toying around with the idea of selling the
collection in 2004, I soon found I wanted to add to the coins a short text elucidating their historical
setting and the many short comments that had accumulated in my forty years of collecting - often
during the most lively conversations and discussions with numismatists and historians. I
immediately set about composing an initial text sample which I sent to the Künker company to be
reviewed. It took Messrs Künker, Kirsch and myself only one meeting to decide to shape the entire
catalogue along the lines of this first sample and to have it translated into English.

This was the beginning of a close cooperation with the Künker company and its employees, which
led to numerous significant additions and new ideas. The result of this cooperation, which has
been most constructive, now lies before you in the form of three handsome catalogues. I hope the
result of our work will spur a deep interest in medieval numismatics and inspire further research
into the subject. I am very grateful to the Künker company which proved willing to publish the
part of my sceatta collection that had already been sold to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge
in a fourth individual volume, complete with my historical comments. This catalogue will be
mailed to you upon demand.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the many people, whom I cannot name individually
here, but without whose advice and support the realisation of these collection catalogues would not
have been possible. Thanks to all the scientists, dealers and collectors, who have supported me
with their comments and research. Thanks to Fritz Rudolf Künker, Arne Kirsch, Dr Sebastian
Steinbach and the other staff for their extensive work on the collection. Thanks also to the
translator of the historical commentaries, Robert Weir, and Wilfried Danner, who did an excellent
job on the layout of the catalogue. Not least, I would like to thank all the readers of the catalogues,
whose positive reactions on the two preceding parts spurred me on to do just as good a job on the
third.

After the third and last auction, when all my coins will once again have been scattered across the
world, the one thing remaining will be the memory of all those nice years of collecting and the
many interesting people accompanying me along the way. I hope the new owners share my
fascination with these 1,000 years of European coinage and I hope they will enjoy their objects for
a long time to come.

Rotterdam, December 2007

G. W. de Wit

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