Denmark 1655-HK 5 ducats Fr-106

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Stack's Bowers sale of the L. E. Bruun Collection, lot 1066
SB924-1066r.jpg

This specimen was lot 1066 in Stack's Bowers sale of the L. E. Bruun Collection (Copenhagen, September 2024), where it sold for €240,000 (about US$265,968 including buyer's fees). The catalog description[1] noted,

"Impressive Nearly Mint State 1/2 Portugaloser, DENMARK. 1/2 Portugaloser (5 Ducats), 1655. Copenhagen Mint. Frederik III. NGC AU-58. Mintmaster: Henrik Köhler (HK). Engravers: Jeremias Hercules / Matthias Först. An utterly wonderful example of this majestic type, lustrous and superbly struck on an even flan, and surely the best of presumably only two privately owned examples with only two further examples in museums (Oslo, Smithsonian). The other privately owned example from the Bille-Brahe collection was sold to Schulman in the 1925 auction of duplicates from the L. E. Bruun collection for the price of DKK 1,900, making it the most expensive coin from this monarch.

Although this magnificent piece was struck from Taler dies (Davenport 3544), the exact weight of the surviving three examples clearly shows that it was struck as a 5 Ducats. An example of a 10 Ducats struck from the same dies was stolen from the Danish National Museum in 1806 and possibly melted. Bruun bought this magnific piece at the estate auction of Herman Henrik Julius Lynge (1822-1897). Lynge is widely considered the father of the professional antiquarian book trade in Denmark. He obtained both the Danish and the Swedish medal of honor, and when he turned 70 he was awarded the title of "Kancelliråd" (titulary chancellor)."

Recorded mintage: unknown.

Specification: 17.5 g, 0.979 fine gold, this specimen 17.35 g.

Catalog reference: Fr-106; KM-Pn13; Hede-54A; Sieg-73.1; Schou-2; Aagaard-83.1; Bruun-6174.

Source:

  • Cuhaj, George S., and Thomas Michael, Standard Catalog of World Coins, 1601-1700, 6th ed., Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 2014.
  • Friedberg, Arthur L. and Ira S. Friedberg, Gold Coins of the World, From Ancient Times to the Present, 9th ed., Clifton, NJ: Coin and Currency Institute, 2017.
  • 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.

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