Basel (15)78 30 kreuzer
This specimen was lot 4015 in SINCONA Auction 98 (Zürich, May 2025), where it sold for 800 CHF (about US$1,161 including buyers' fees). The catalog description[1] noted,
"SCHWEIZ Basel, Stadt und Kanton, Halber Guldentaler 1578, Basel. Sehr selten. Sehr schön. Henkelspur, Felder geglättet. (Switzerland, canton of Basel, half guldenthaler of 1578, Basel mint. Very rare, Very Fine, Mount mark, fields tooled.)"
The guldenthaler was sixty kreuzer which, in the early part of the sixteenth century, was equal to a thaler. In the later part of the sixteenth century, the thaler rose to 72 kreuzer, making the guldenthaler 5/6 of a thaler. Later, in the seventeenth century, the thaler rose to ninety kreuzer, making the gulden (the "thaler" part of the name was dropped) two-thirds of a thaler. This type was struck 1566, 1571-73, 1576, 1581, 1584 and undated. Tho marked thirty kreuzer, it is universally catalogued as a half guldenthaler.
Recorded mintage: unknown.
Specification: 11.83 g, silver, 33 mm diameter, this specimen 11.98 g.
Catalog reference: Winterstein (Taler) 425, HMZ 2-62n.
- Richter, Jürg, and Ruedi Kunzmann, Neuer HMZ-Katalog, Band 2: Die Münzen der Schweiz und Liechtensteins 15//16. Jahrhundert bis Gegenwart, Regenstauf, Germany: H. Gietl Verlag GmbH, 2006.
- Winterstein, Christian, Die Taler Von Basel, Basel: Schweizerischer Bankverein Basel, 1983.
- [1]Richter, Jurg, SINCONA Auction 98: The Konrad Bürki Collection - Part 3 (Swiss Cantonal Coins), Zürich: SINCONA AG, 2025.
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