Modern Proof Maria Theresa Thaler?

You mean the two hairs in the red cirlces.


Thank you austrokiwi, you have solved my problem. Then, this is a perfect example of H58.

I refer you to my article "The 20th century minting of the Maria Theresa Thaler". But the first thing you should understand: H66 doesn't exist. The mythogical story about H66 goes back to an article written by Stokes in 1980 published by the Austrian Numismatic society. For some reason Leypold and Hafner thought that Brussels mint( yes Brussels...read on) didn't start producing MTT until after the 2nd world war. However my research( particular London mint and UK foreign office records) and the research of Francois Regourdy ( who reviewed Brussels mint records) clearly shows Brussles started producing the MTT in 1937.

What does Brussels have to tell us about Birmingham mint? Brussels mint produced the MTT coin at the request of a London based Banking house Samuel Montagu and co( now swallowed up by HSBC). That banking house was part of the pool that received London mint struck MTT but they like all the other members of the pool were not happy with the limited supply coming from the London mint so to ensure continued stocks that banking house also purchased Brussels mint coins.

Two important piece of other info: Around 1937/38(from memory see the article for the specific date) Johnson and Mathey asked the London mint for MTT dies so they could have the MTT struck elsewhere. The reply from the London mint is great reading......they effectively threw their toys out of the cot over the request.

The Royal Mint did have production problems with the MTT and prior to WWII they entered into discussions with the Royal Canadian Mint for the Canadian mint to produce MTTs. This included an expectation that royalties would be paid to the London mint. The Canadians decided against the offer. Now before I found what actually happened I was really puzzled on a number of points:

• Prior to the war the London mint refused to hand dies over to Johnson and Matthey so why would they hand them over in 1949


• Samuel montagu were buying coins from the London mint all through the year of 1949 why would birmingham mint get involved The Birmingham mint only ever supplied Samuel Montagu the argument made by leypold and Hafner is the London mint couldn't keep up with demand but London mint records of 1949 make no mention of the same sort of problems that they had before the war


• Why would SM use Brussels mint coins pre war, then start getting Birmingham coins from london mint dies in 1949 and then from 1955 get birmingham struck coins that were produced using brussles mint dies


• Samuel Montagu actual owned the brussels mint dies that were produced before the war

For me something was wrong: now some writers ( Broome, I have a spare copy of his article if any one wants to take it off my hands, and Stokes quote a 1949 London mint report that they believed says that Birmingham used London mint dies. I went to the UK national Archives found that report and all it says about Birmingham is the amount of MTTs produced by birmingham. There is no mention of a transfer of dies from London to Birmingham in any of the London mint archives( held in the national archives ( I know because I spent 3 full days looking for such a reference) What I did find was very different( see my article). Now although I had Regourdys work when I wrote the article I only used it for the Brussels mint info....I didn't look at what Regordy had written about Birmingham( more a little later).

What I did find was papers regarding the known transfer of dies from Brussels to Birmingham in 1949. The Birmingham mint had informed the London mint the transfer was occurring. Then the nail in Leypold's, Hafners and Stokes theory....I found set of communications between UK customs and the London mint.

A passenger on an aircraft from Brussels was discovered with a set of dies for MTT( including edge dies) the passenger informed customs the dies were for the Birmingham mint they had been produced before the war and had been in priovate hands through the war and weere now beign passed to the birmingham mint for the production of MTTs. Interestingly if I had read Regourdy's comments on Birmingham I would have had a nice piece of supporting evidence. Regourdy discover Brussels mint records that noted that on the 9 may 1949 A set dies was handed over to a representative of Samuel Montagu. Uk customs discovered the passenger with MTT dies on 10 May 1949.

Customs were suspicious they impounded the dies and sent them to the London mint, who quickly returned them to customs for release back to the passenger confirming that there was a valid import license for the dies. Some useless detail the passenger was a Mr Vansittart he was ex flight GAJD1 from Brussels to Northholt airport. Nothing more is said in the records. Note Regoudy also thought,based on Stokes, that the 1949 Birmingham strike was conducted using London mint dies!


I think a combination of errors occurred to produce this myth, the first too many people read to much in to the 1949 mint report....the London mint was supposed to report on all coins produced in the UK and the mistake was people assumed as the mint mentioned Birmingham that dies had been transferred. Stokes in his research had contacted Samuel montage who sent him a coin they stated was from Birmingham 1949 I suspect that as that banking house was having orders filled by both Birmingham and London that the clerk who sent Stokes the coin just stated it was a 1949 coin and then stokes assumed from all the other assumed to be correct info that it had to be from Birmingham mint.

So I repeat H 66 doesn't exist!!

There may be another more interesting hybrid out there in the course of this research I was intrigued to find that Birmingham and London shared technology on how to strike the edge of the MTT. Birmingham shiped edge dies and machinery to London for the London mint technicians to examine the equipment was returned Now about 4 years back there was an ebay sale ( that I lost) of a Birmingham mint coin ( Brussels die type) with a London mint edge. I never got to examine that coin...but assuming the seller was right there is an interesting variety to be found.

For the Third time H66 does not exist

Also note you may want to note in Hafner H 68 should read 1937-1938 and 1952 - 1957.

Some more info( that I didn't include in my article. As the UK geared up to liberate Ethiopia from the Italians the ramped up MTT production. However in the early stages before the Indian mints started production they couldn't get enough Coins. The War office managed to make up the shortfall by buying Brussels minted MTT from Samuel Montagu. I suspect there was an Airfoce officer involved in that decision as after the war the air-force continued buying MTT from Samuel Montagu and co and wasn't aware of the London mint production. How I came to this: In the mid 1950s the sultan of Oman visited the UK and toured the London mint he saw MTT being produced. when he got back to Oman he specified that only London MTT MTT were acceptable. The Brit Airforce was in Oman and discovered a huge problem and that the London mint produced MTT. They couldn't use their Samuel Montagu supplied MTT once the airforce switched to London mint dies the Brussels mint stopped making the coin(1957)



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One further comment folowing on from my comments about Birmingham. I have this on going question Durign WWII was there any german sponsored production of the MTT? it seems that as the coin was so important in some of the theaters the Germans were involved in that the MTT may have been a useful tool for Germany. I know of no research in this area and if the germans did produce the coin most likely it would be from Paris. It is also possible the Germans might have relied on Italian production... its an interesting but perhaps un-answerable question.

I just picked up these two new MTTs today, and neither have the dots in the center shield. Does this mean that both of these are from the 1960s? Are they both 61a? Thanks!

wonghinghi- Thanks for the help! I do appreciate it. It's good to know that my suspicions were correct.

However, is there any way to determine about when during the 1960-85-ish period that my coin was struck?

Up to now, I don't agree with you in that point, austrokiwi.

I check all my modern categorized MTTs that are in duplicate, triplicate or more and find the edge orientation shows good consistency. If the Mint did what you said "the dges have been struck...", we should easily find two coins from the same time frame, same mint but of different edge orientation easily. This is not found in my collections. I show the data below:

H49 x 2 (same edge orientation)
H54 x 2 (ditto)
H58 x 4 (ditto)
H68 x 3 (ditto)

London/Indian x 8 (edge orientation differs for the reason the 8 coins actually include London and Bombay or Calcutta specimens, it is believed that the differnt mints had their own edge orientation practice)

Who can show two exactly the same MTTs (same mint, same time and of course same Hafner number) but with differnt edge orientations here, my above assumption invalid.

On the other hand, I am doing a small research to find a real, unanimous London mint strike (H63) specimen.

Characteristics of London strikes:
1) 1-2-1 tail feather formation (unanimously)
2) better edge execution for the letters and arabesques and rosette, it might be accounted by the better minting technique of The Royal Mint
3) number of dots within the eagle's (left) beak is 13 for London/Indian strikes, all other mints are from 11-12 dots contemporarily. Pictures are shown below.

H49(Vienna) - 12 dots in the eagle's beak



H54(Vienna) - 12 dots



H58(Vienna) - 11 dots



H68(Brussel) - 11 dots



London/Indian strike - 13 dots



Another London/Indian strike - 13 dots



See also the two different type of London/Indian strikes have different edge orientation so they might be from different Mints.

In the next post, I would try to identify a real London strike from other Indian strikes.

In fact, it should be very easy to find an English (London) MTT restrike as the mintage of it is very great and it is easy to identify with its unique 1-2-1 feather formation. But I still got a big trouble with it. Hafner's Lexicon told that the diameter of H63 (London type) is 39.5mm and its weight is about 28.50 grams. I suspect the correctness with these clues.

I bought quite a number of ?London MTT restrikes online in recent months and want to identify a true London MTT restrike. I based on two most prominent features: the 1-2-1 feathers system and the number of dots in an eagle's beak (left side), it should have 13 dots for all English restrikes no matter they are London, Bombay or Calcutta types.

I also follow the scan of MTT from " Royal Mint Annual Report 1961" to choose my presumed London restrike. Please note the appearance of the saltire on the reverse.



Now I possess 5 London type, 3 Bombay type and one Calcutta type presumably. I show all my five London MTT restrikes here that I think they are London type, see whether you agree with my observation or not. The three Bombay specimen would be post next time.

1) 28.09 gr. 40.6mm (from UK seller)




2) 27.99 gr. 40.4mm (from UK seller)




3) 28.05 gr. 40.3-40.5mm (from UK seller)




4) 27.98 gr. 40.3-40.4mm (from US seller)




5) 28.03 gr. 40.4-40.5mm (from US seller)




Finally, I want to reply austrokiwi, you are right that the orientation of the edge letters are not fixed for each individual mint, they are in random (either up or down) orientation during minting. In my five London restrikes, two point to one side and the other three point to another side.