Salzburg 1546 pfennig
This specimen was part of lot 2585 in Künker sale 384 (Osnabrück, March 2023), which sold for €130 (about US$168 including buyer's fees). The catalog description[1] noted,
"Ernst von Bayern, 1540-1554. Einseitiger Pfennig 1544, 1546. 0,25 g und 0,29 g. Probszt 392, 394; Zöttl 427, 429. RR 2 Stück., Sehr schön. (archbishopric of Salzburg, Ernest of Bavaria, 1540-54, uniface pennies of 1544 and 1546. Very rare, two pieces, very fine.)"
The Archbishopric of Salzburg was an ecclesiastical state between Bavaria and Austria and usually ruled by a Hapsburg client. Four pfennig made a kreuzer and sixty kreuzer made a guldiner. Ernst was made archbishop without ever taking holy orders and finally abdicated in 1554 to Silesia after repeated deadlines from the pope. 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: billon, this specimen 0,29 g.
Catalog reference: Probszt 394; Zöttl 429.
- 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.
Link to: