Salzburg 1578-SR guldenthaler
This specimen was part of lot 2641 in Künker sale 384 (Osnabrück, March 2023), where it sold for €460 (about US$595 including buyer's fees). The catalog description[1] noted,
"ohann Jakob Khuen von Belasi, 1560-1586. Guldentaler (60 Kreuzer) 1578, 1580, mit Titel Rudolfs II. 24,46 g und 24,39 g. Dav-124 (2x); Probszt 584, 587; Zöttl 641 (Type 4), 643 (Type 4). 2 Stück., Mit kleinen Fehlern, sehr schön. (archbishopric of Salzburg, John Jacob Khuen of Belasi, 1560-86, guldenthaler or sixty kreuzer of 1578 and 1580, struck in the name of Rudolf II. Two pieces, very fine.)"
The Archbishopric of Salzburg was an ecclesiastical state between Bavaria and Austria and usually ruled by a Hapsburg client. This denomination appears for the first time from various German states in the 1560's. It marks the separation between the gulden (always sixty kreuzer) and the thaler (first 60, then 72, then 90 and finally 120 kreuzer in the mid-eighteenth century). At this time, this coin was 5/6 of a thaler. Half guldenthalers of thirty kreuzer also exist. 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: silver, this specimen 24,46 g.
Catalog reference: Dav-124; Probszt 584; Zöttl 641 (Type 4).
- 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: