Freiburg 1570 guldenthaler
This specimen was lot 4234 in Künker sale 441 (Osnabrück, March 2026), where it sold for €2,800 (about US$3,852 including buyer's fees). The catalog description[1] noted,
"FREIBURG, STADT Guldentaler (60 Kreuzer) 1570, mit Titel Ferdinands I. Sehr selten, besonders in dieser Erhaltung. Herrliche Patina, vorzüglich. (city of Freiburg, guldenthaler of sixty kreuzer of 1570, struck in the name of Ferdinand I. Very rare in this quality, superb patina, extremely fine.)"
Freiburg, north of Basel and east of the Rhine, was the chief town of the Austrian province of Breisgau. In 1803, Napoleon handed it over to his ally, the grand duke of Baden, whose possession it remained until the collapse of the Wilhelmine empire in 1918. This issue of 1567-73, like most from this locality, is rare. The gulden and thaler were originally both sixty kreuzer; by 1570, the thaler had risen to 72 kreuzer.
Recorded mintage: unknown.
Specification: silver.
Catalog reference: KM MB34, Dav-31; Rommel 37/51.
- Craig, William D., Germanic Coinages: Charlemagne through Wilhelm II, Mountain View, CA: 1954.
- Davenport, John S., Silver Gulden, 1559-1763, Frankfurt am Main, Numismatischer Verlag P. N. Schulten, 1982.
- Nicol, N. Douglas, Cuhaj, George S., and Thomas Michael, Standard Catalog of German Coins, 1501-Present, 3rd ed., Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 2011.
- [1]Künker, Fritz Rudolf, Horst-Rudiger Künker, Ulrich Künker and Andreas Kaiser, Frühjahrs-Auktion 441: Orders and Decorations from the Estate of Wilhelm, Duke of Bavaria (1752–1837), among others | Coins and Medals from the Middle Ages and Modern times, particularly Denmark, Habsburg, Norway, and Saxony, Osnabrück: Fritz Rudolf Künker GmbH & Co., AG, 2026.
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