Eight Weeks Of Dated European Coinage (1234 To 1500 Ad)

Here is a 1500L Salzburg (Austria) uniface pfennig ,Archbishop
Leonhard von Keutschach. I have it attributed as Probst 125,Zottl 86,Levisson VI,65. On the 1234-1500 medieval coinage site it has it as Sch.4260. I don't have a Levinson catalog,though. The O in Zottl has an umlaut.

@EddieDiz, that is a great little coin! Thanks for sharing it on this thread!

I agree with your attributions: Levinson IV-65, Probzt 125, and Schulten 4260. I believe that the letter L is there for the Prince/Archbishop Leonhard von Keutschach (as @January1may mentioned). The symbol on the right shield is a turnip.

Here is a Kreutzer from the Austrian Duchy of Wiener Neustadt. This one is from 1470 AD, but the design is similar on all of my remaining coins from this section of Levinson. I'll post a few others too in the next few days. This one is 18 mm in diameter and has a mass of 0.8 g. The obv legend is FRIDIC ROMAN IP and surrounds a double-headed eagle, while the rev legend is MON NOV CIV 1&^0 and surrounds an eight-armed cross. The attribution is Levinson IV-21.

Relatively speaking, this coin is one of two dates (with the 1471) that are most common for this mint. Levinson comments on the poor quality of coins minted by Friedrich III although the peck marks on the obv are most likely PMD. More likely, this coin came out of the mint with very little detail on half of the rev.

No prob--learning more about our coins is a basic tenet of CCF.

Here is another Kreuzer from the Austrian Duchy of Wiener Neustadt. At 0.9 g and 18 mm, it is slightly heavier than the previous coin, but that could be rounding error from my balance. The design elements and inscriptions are the same except that the rev legend ends with 1&^1 as the coin is dated 1471 AD. The attribution is Levinson IV-24.

This coin also suffers from weakness in the striking, but the details that are present are quite nice. In particular, the medieval R at 6 o'clock on the obv is quite interesting as it looks very much like a modern letter B.

I've got a couple more from Levinson't group #4 to post, so here is my second-to-last one. It is a Kreuzer of the Austrian Duchy of Styria. It is 18 mm in diameter and has a mass of 0.7 g. It was minted in Graz and is dated 1483 AD. The attribution is Levinson IV-41. The obv inscription is FR R IMP A E I O you and surrounds the double-headed eagle while the rev inscription is MON NOV STI 83 and surrounds the eight-armed cross. You may notice a couple new design elements on this coin; specifically, the crown on the eagle and the shield with a panther on the center of the cross.

I'm noticing that the lighting on the pic of the coin's rev is not very good and so the numeral 8 is pretty much obscured. It is better in hand, where you can angle the light to emphasize the details separately. This coin does have a slight bend in it. This has caused some of the uneven wear that is quite visible in the pics.

More information about the curious listing of all the vowels on the obv inscription can be found here:

http://goccf.com/t/260883

Here is my last early dated coin from the Habsburg Territories. It is a Batzen from the Salzburg Archbishopric dated 1500 AD. It is attributed Levinson IV-64. The obv inscription is LEONARD 9 ARCHIEPI SAL 1500 L and surrounds two shields (one of Salzburg and one with that turnip which is the symbol of the Keutschachs). As we discussed previously, the L likely indicates the ruler (Leonhard von Keutschach). On the rev, the inscription is SANCTVS RVDBERT EPS surrounding St. Rupert.

This coin has a diameter of 25 mm and a mass of 3.0 g. Interestingly, this coin was also minted as a piedfort with a mass of 13.6 g. However, don't get your hopes up on finding the piedfort as there is only a single one extant. My thin version is relatively common, with more than 250 pieces collectible.

Salzburg didn't start striking dated coins until the year 1500 AD. Levinson postulates that the date was likely frozen for several years on the Batzen for two reasons: their high survivalship and the fact that the next dated Batzen of Salzburg is dated 1508.

Starting tomorrow we move on to the 5th geographic region of early dated coins: Switzerland.

I think you mean that it isn't really your area...yet!


Thanks for the compliments--I'm glad you are finding it informative.