Salzburg 1555 ducat Fr-614
This specimen was lot 2587 in Künker sale 384 (Osnabrück, March 2023), where it sold for €650 (about US$840 including buyer's fees). The catalog description[1] noted,
"Michael von Küenburg, 1554-1560. Dukat 1555. GOLD. Leichte Prägeschwäche, sehr schön. (archbishopric of Salzburg, Michael of Küenburg, 1554-60, ducat of 1555. Slightly weakly struck, 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 1555-59. It is the only ducat and the most common gold coin of this prelate. 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 3.53 g.
Catalog reference: Fr-614; Probszt 413; Zöttl 453.
- 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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