Hamburg 1884-J 20 mark
This specimen was lot 2233 in Künker sale 352 (Osnabrück, Germany, September 2021), where it sold for €400 (about US$557 including buyer's fees). The catalog description[1] noted,
"REICHSGOLDMÜNZEN, HAMBURG, Freie und Hansestadt. 20 Mark 1884. Sehr schön-vorzüglich. (Germany, unified gold coinage of the empire, free city of Hamburg, twenty mark of 1884. Very fine to extremely fine.)"
This type was struck 1875-89 and is among the more common twenty mark of the Second Empire. Hamburg, on the North Sea, was one of three imperial free cities permitted a continued existence under the Empire of 1871; Bremen and Lubeck were the others. She struck silver two, three and five mark and gold ten and twenty mark until that Empire's collapse in 1918. This type is readily available lightly circulated. The Hamburg mint is still in operation, striking coins for the Federal Republic of Germany.
Recorded mintage: 639,000.
Specification: 7.96 g, 0.900 fine gold.
Catalog reference: Fr-3776, KM 602, J. 210.
- Michael, Thomas, and Tracy L. Schmidt, Standard Catalog of World Coins, 1801-1900, 9th ed., Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 2019.
- 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.
- Craig, William D., Germanic Coinages: Charlemagne through Wilhelm II, Mountain View, CA: 1954.
- Jaeger, Kurt, Die Deutschen Münzen seit 1871, Basel: Münzen und Medaillen AG, 1982.
- [1]Künker, Fritz Rudolf, Horst-Rudiger Künker, Ulrich Künker and Andreas Kaiser, Künker Auktion 352: Die Sammlung Hermann Schwarz: Faszination des gepragten Goldes. Osnabrück: Fritz Rudolf Künker GmbH & Co., AG, 2021.
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