Salzburg 1644 1/2 ducat Fr-758
This specimen was lot 2796 in Künker sale 384 (Osnabrück, March 2023), where it sold for €460 (about US$595 including buyer's fees). The catalog description[1] noted,
"Paris von Lodron, 1619-1653. 1/2 Dukat 1644. GOLD. Min. gewellt, sehr schön-vorzüglich. Erworben im Oktober 1982 von der Partin Bank, Bad Mergentheim. (archbishopric of Salzburg, Paris von Lodron, 1619-53, half ducat of 1644. Slightly wavy, 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 was struck in klippe (KM 152) format in 1643-44 and 1649-50 and round format (shown here) in 1643-44 and 1648-52. These are not the first half ducats from Salzburg but the first not extremely rare. 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: 1.75 g, 0.986 fine gold, this specimen 1.73 g.
Catalog reference: KM 151, Fr-758; Probszt 1149; Zöttl 1395 (Type 1).
- 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.
- Cuhaj, George S., and Thomas Michael, Standard Catalog of World Coins, 1601-1700, 6th ed., Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 2014.
- 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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