How Low (On Silver Content Below 70%) Can You Go?

You can tick the 32 % box too, tdziemia.

I bought this Charles VIII dizain, Karolus as the type is called, could not resist the elaborate K on this one! Haven't got it in hand yet, so still seller's picture.

Issued 1488-1498, 0.319 silver.

Fantastic! And I agree that is a lovely coin. I think spence has a patard from the Low Countries that also fits 0.319.

And, I think with this composition, we have met my initial quasi-goal (or guesstimate) of at least 30 compositions!



Yes, part of the Saxon-Polish or Polish-Saxon coinage of the 18th century.
As best I can tell, the way Gumowski handles coins of this reign:
- Coins with the crowned bust and name Augustus III he considers to be Polish, even if the Polish "crown mint" striking these was Leipzig.
- Coins of the city mints (Gdansk, Elbing, Torun) considered Polish
- Coins with a bareheaded bust and name Friedrich Augustus he considers to be "Polnisch-sachsische" though I tend to think these primarily circulated in Saxony.
Anyhow, here is the table of compositions for first category of coins:


For the 6 groschen, 3 groschen and dreipolker the info is all consistent, and the composition comes out to 0.288.
Unfortunately for the ort (Gumowski uses both ort and timpfe) the information doesn't hang together, so I don't think it's useable. If we take the last two columns as accurate (5.84 grams of which 1.97 are pure silver) we get a silver content of 0.337 which does not match up with 4 1/2 on "probe." Also, with the ort being 18 groschen, the silver content seems far too low in relation to the 6 groschen coin. Finally, elsewhere Gumowski says that a thaler was worth 8 gulden, or 6 orts + 12 groschen. This suggests the silver content of the ort should be something like 3.7 grams for the silver to add up correctly to the silver in a thaler.

At about the same time (1760) the Gdansk Ort is at 7 1/2 (0.469) on purity, and its silver content (2.95 grams) is close to 3 times the silver content of the Gdansk 6 groschen coin.

I have found one other mistake in the Gumowski tables, so they are not perfect (but that other one was at least easier to figure out what the mistake was).

Yes, that also occurred to me. The first "tympf" from the reign of Jan Casimir was denominated at 30 groschen, but had less silver than the ort of 18 groschen. So maybe you're right, that its silver content is not supposed to add up the way I thought. There is still the issue, though of the entries for that coin (weights and "probe") not even agreeing with each other ... it looks like the silver content could be in the 30% range, but could be 28% (4 1/2 / 16ths) or 34% from the ratio of silver content to total weight.

Thanks for the tip on 33% in Brabant (comes out to 4 deniers, 4 grains). When I searched, it turned up one coin (which unfortunately I don't have), but also some coins with a catalog number 333.

Here is one of the many coins listed on numista as 0.333 silver, a 3 Kreuzer from Baden:

https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces29290.html

Fantastic! The 30-39% slice is looking like our best thus far!

@j1m, it's a good thing I'm not so good at searches, or I would spend more on coins . I don't have any of those Brabant coins yet, and indeed am still missing Philip of Saint Pol, whose coins don;t come up so often (though I see that a guy in Holland on MA-shops who I have bought from before has one).

Here is where we are for 30-39%. Great work!
Let's give it one more day to hunt for that elusive 39%, then Saturday morning we move to 20-29%.

38% German States/Prussia 2 ½ groschen KM#486 (mrwhatisit)
........Lithuania ½ groat Alexander N#31088, 343561 (DBM, january1may)
........Lithuania ½ groat Sigismund I N#63424, 130413 (january1may, DBM)
........Lithuania ½ groat Sigismund II N#35047, 104468, (tdziemia)
........Sweden 1/24 Riksdaler KM#522 (paralyse)
37% Poland 1 groat KM#163 (tdziemia)
36% Lithuania groat KM#10 (tdziemia)
35% Dominican Republic ½ peso KM#15 (ariette)
........Finland 1 markka KM# 49 (triggersmob)
........U.S. Jefferson War Nickel (Hondo Boguss, jbuck, paralyse)
34% Lithuanian groat 1566 N#46216 (tdziemia)
33% German States/Baden 3 kreuzer KM#211 (spence)
32% France, Charles VIII dizain N#34529 (erafjel)
31% German States/Prussia 6 groscher KM#A297 (spence)
........German States/Prussia 1/24 thaler KM#296 (paralyse)
........Italy/Papal States-Bologna muraiola KM#146? (january1may)
........Silesia/Schweidnitz ½ groat N#65413 (tdziemia)
30% France denier tournois Louis IX N#42076 (erafjel)
........Mexico 25, 50 centavos, peso KM#443, 449, 457 (Hondo Boguss)

I'll note that for the Prussia 1/24 thaler coin listed at 31% by @paralyse, KM has this at 0.222, but this appears to be a mistake as this would give too low a silver content (weight) in relation to the analagous 1/12 thaler.
... and it's turning out that the silver content of many billon coins from Prussia and other Geman States is known and is helping the cause!

@jbuck - that coin was pulled from a 2x2 flip in a local coin shop for $7 a few years ago, I think I did ok on it :P