Denmark 1624-NS 4 speciedaler Dav-3521

Stack's Bowers sale of the L. E. Bruun Collection, lot 1031

This specimen was lot 1031 in Stack's Bowers sale of the L. E. Bruun Collection (Copenhagen, September 2024), where it sold for €26,400 (about US$29,257 including buyer's fees). The catalog description^[1] noted,

"Extremely Rare 4 Speciedaler Struck with Norwegian Silver, DENMARK. 4 Speciedaler, 1624. Copenhagen Mint; Privy Mark: Clover. Christian IV. NGC EF Details--Reverse Graffiti. Mintmaster: Nicolaus Schwabe (NS). A truly majestic coin struck with the regular dies for a Speciedaler but four times as thick, the heft and importance of the piece is evident as soon as one picks it up. The details are commendable, with limited signs of handling, being constrained to only the highest elements of the design. The reverse graffiti designation is attributable to a small patch inside the 13 interlocking shields. This minor fault should have little to no bearing on the overall desirability of the piece, given the splendid RARITY and desirability of this special strike.
In an entry of March 31st the king wrote in one of his diaries that he had received 140 Speciedalers from Schwabe which he had struck from Norwegian silver. Even though there might have been silver from other sources in the alloy there can be little doubt that the beautiful 1624-series is the first of the Danish/Norwegian coins to be struck from silver actually mined at Kongsberg Silver Works which was founded shortly after finding silver ores in the cliffs in the summer of 1623."

This quadruple speciedaler was struck in 1624 along with triple, double and single speciedalers. This bust of the king was used on the single speciedaler until 1634. Christian IV (r. 1588-1648) had a long but not particularly successful reign. His war with Sweden and his intervention in the Thirty Years War were costly and brought little gain.

Recorded mintage: unknown.

Specification: 115 g, 0.888 fine silver, 43.7 mm diameter, this specimen 116.49 g.

Catalog reference: KM-79; Dav-3521; Hede-58; Sieg-110; Schou-1; Bruun-5364.

Source:

Cuhaj, George S., and Thomas Michael, Standard Catalog of World Coins, 1601-1700, 6th ed., Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 2014.
Davenport, John S., European Crowns, 1600-1700, Galesburg, IL, 1974.
Siegs Møntcatalog 2016: Danmark med Omrader, 48 ed., Frederikssund, Siegs Forlag ApS, 2015.
^[1]Orsini, Matt, Kyle Ponterio, Jeremy Bostwick and Henrik Holt Christensen, The L. E. Bruun Collection - A Corpus of Scandinavian Monetary History Part I, Costa Mesa, CA: Stack's Bowers Galleries, Inc., 2024.

Links to:

Denmark 1624-NS 4 speciedaler Dav-3521

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