Ragusa 1707 perpero
This specimen was lot 3184 in Stephen Album sale 50 (Santa Rosa, CA, September 2024), where it sold for $180. The catalog description[1] noted, "RAGUSA: Republic, AR perpera, 1707-SB, St. Blaze divides date and S B., lettering around, VF, ex Dr. Robert A. Rosenfeld Collection." One perpero was twelve grossetti or one fifth of a tallero. This type was struck intermittently 1683-1709, 1723-50 and 1801-03. The SCWC marks some dates as scarcer than others but we don't know if there are enough of these around to collect them by date. The Republic of Ragusa was a Christian enclave on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. In the eighteenth century, it was an independent city-state surrounded and protected by the Ottoman Empire, which ruled most of the Balkans. The "SB" is not a mintmark but an abbreviation of "Saint Blasius", who figures on the obverse.
Recorded mintage: unknown.
Specification: 5.7 g, silver, 26-29 mm diameter.
Catalog reference: KM-7.
- Michael, Thomas, Standard Catalog of World Coins, 1701-1800, 7th ed., Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 2016.
- [1]Album, Stephen, Joseph Lang, Paul Montz, Michael Barry and Norman Douglas Nicol, Auction 50, featuring selections from the Dr. Robert A. Rosenfeld Collection, the Hakim Hamidi Collection, the Almer H. Orr III Collection and the Solar Collection, Santa Rosa, CA: Stephen Album Rare Coins, Inc., 2024.
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