Salzburg 1500 ducat Fr-579
This specimen was lot 2509 in Künker sale 384 (Osnabrück, March 2023), where it sold for €2,000 (about US$2,584 including buyer's fees). The catalog description[1] noted,
"Leonhard von Keutschach, 1495-1519. Dukat 1500. Mit vierblättrigen Röschen in den Winkel des Wappens. GOLD. R Schrötlingsfehler am Rand, sehr schön +. (archbishopric of Salzburg, Leonhard von Keutschach, 1495-1519, ducat of 1500. Obverse: arms and date in quadrilobe. Rare, edge nick, choice very fine.)"
The Archbishopric of Salzburg was an ecclesiastical state between Bavaria and Austria and usually ruled by a Hapsburg client. This type is listed for 1500-19. It and the slightly lighter goldgulden (Fr-580) are the first gold coins of this state not astronomically priced. In the seventeenth century, Salzburg was blessed with a number of productive silver mines and the prince-archbishop was a prolific issuer of coins, particularly thalers. The archbishopric was secularized in 1803 and passed to Austria in 1814.
Recorded mintage: unknown.
Specification: 3.50 g, 0.986 fine gold, this specimen 3.54 g.
Catalog reference: Fr-579; Probszt 64; Levinson IV-62 (R2); Zöttl 21 (Type 1).
- 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.
- Levinson, Robert, The Early Dated Coins of Europe, 1234-1500: An Illustrated Catalogue and Guide to dated medieval coinage. Clifton, NJ: Coin & Currency Institute, 2007.
- Helmut Zöttl, Salzburg Münzen und Medaillen, 1500-1810, 2 vols. Salzburg: Verlag Fruhwald, 2008.
- [1]Künker, Fritz Rudolf, Horst-Rudiger Künker, Ulrich Künker and Andreas Kaiser, Katalog 384: Münzen, Medaillen und Marken von Salzburg - Die Sammlung Professor Dr. Franz Schedel, Osnabrück: Fritz Rudolf Künker GmbH & Co., AG, 2023.
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