The inclusion of personal letters in books once owned by notable numismatists can provide insights into former views on a coinage. The four letters reproduced in this article were written by the noted Irish numismatist John Lindsay and inserted in two copies of Lindsay’s A View of the Coinage of Scotland. They are addressed to the books’ original owners, J. H. Burn and J. B. Greenshields respectively. They illustrate the application of our forebears to elucidating aspects of the Scottish coinage.