Salzburg 1547 ducat Fr-604
This specimen was lot 2571 in Künker sale 384 (Osnabrück, March 2023), where it sold for €1,300 (about US$1,680 including buyer's fees). The catalog description[1] noted,
"Ernst von Bayern, 1540-1554. Dukat 1547. GOLD. R Sehr schön-vorzüglich. (archbishopric of Salzburg, Ernest of Bavaria, 1540-54, ducat of 1547. Rare, very fine to extremely 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 1540-54, i.e., the archbishop's entire reign yet it remains scarce. 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: 3.50 g, 0.986 fine gold, this specimen 3.52 g.
Catalog reference: Fr-604; Probszt 348; Zöttl 383.
- 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.
- 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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