Salzburg 1518 2 kreuzer
This specimen was lot 2518 in Künker sale 384 (Osnabrück, March 2023), where it sold for €220 (about US$284 including buyer's fees). The catalog description[1] noted,
"Leonhard von Keutschach, 1495-1519. Einseitiger, klippenförmiger Zweier 1518. RR Sehr schön. (archbishopric of Salzburg, Leonhard von Keutschach, 1495-1519, uniface klippe two kreuzer of 1518. Very rare, very fine.)"
The Archbishopric of Salzburg was an ecclesiastical state between Bavaria and Austria and usually ruled by a Hapsburg client. The batzen and half batzen were denominations long familiar in Switzerland. Two kreuzer made 1/30 of a thaler. 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 klippe format, with a square planchet, was strictly for presentation; we don't know why the archbishop would bother with such a low value denomination. The archbishopric was secularized in 1803 and passed to Austria in 1814.
Recorded mintage: unknown.
Specification: silver or billon, this specimen 0.98 g.
Catalog reference: Probszt 123 bis; Zöttl 85 (Type 2).
- Craig, William D., Germanic Coinages: Charlemagne through Wilhelm II, Mountain View, CA: 1954.
- 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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