Salzburg 1740 1/4 ducat Fr-851
This specimen was lot 3079 in Künker sale 384 (Osnabrück, March 2023), where it sold for €140 (about US$181 including buyer's fees). The catalog description[1] noted,
"Leopold Anton Eleutherius von Firmian, 1727-1744. 1/4 Dukat 1740. GOLD. Sehr schön. (archbishopric of Salzburg, Leopold Anton Eleutherius von Firmian, 1727-44, quarter ducat of 1740. Very fine.)"
The Archbishopric of Salzburg was an ecclesiastical state between Bavaria and Austria and usually ruled by a Hapsburg client. This type was struck 1728, 1734 and 1740. Despite being struck only three years, it is the most affordable gold coin of the reign. 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: 0.875 g, 0.986 fine gold, this specimen 0.86 g.
Catalog reference: KM 330, Fr-851; Probszt 2131; Zöttl 2564 (Type 2).
- Craig, William D., Germanic Coinages: Charlemagne through Wilhelm II, Mountain View, CA: 1954.
- 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.
- Michael, Thomas, Standard Catalog of World Coins, 1701-1800, 7th ed., Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 2016.
- 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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