How Far Back Can We Go? Seventh Edition! Ended At 1380 Waiting On 1379

Beautiful coins, paralyse, and a worthy catch-up!

Back to the timeline, we should be on 1691 today, so here is my 1691 English crown:

The decorative zigzags in the angles of the shields are actually a monogram combining the letters W and M for William and Mary.

1690 Gunmoney halfcrown from Ireland:

These coins were issued by King James II in Ireland after he was ousted from the English throne by William and Mary.

I wish I could make 8% on my money as quickly as a king .

I have a 1690 1/3 thaler from Brunswick-Luneburg-Calenberg

More stunning coins from erafjel and tdziemia

For 1689 I have an English halfcrown showing the busts of William III and Queen Mary...

... and an Irish 'Gunmoney' halfcrown with the portrait of the deposed King James II:

Both coins were issued the same year and state that the people whose portrait they bore were ruling Great Britain, France and Ireland! For each of them, one out of three was correct!

Thank you for the kind comments!

No more coins from me for a couple of decades, but I look forward to enjoying all your contributions! Meanwhile, I can fill out with some more or less interesting supplementary information.


Yes, it is good to be the king.

I looked into how the reformations were enforced, since there was likely some resistance to hand in one's valuable gold and silver coins, just to have fewer back. There were no penalties for not handing in one's coins (it would have been hard to prove), but the options for how to use the old coins were restricted:
- They eventually (1693) became demonetized and without value (and melting them down for the metal content was risky, see last point).
- With France at war, cross-border trade halted. Attempting to bring gold or silver out of the country, or even to hand them to foreigners, was punished with confiscation of the money plus a fine of 6,000 livres (a life income for many).
- Melting gold and silver coins privately was punished with being sent to the galleys, for life.

I guess handing in the coins at a prescribed loss was preferable to most. Still, there are surviving specimens, to the joy of later collectors.



Yes, English monarchs were persistent in their claims to the French throne. Not that the "usurper king" Louis XIV cared much.

Even more persistent were the Danish and Swedish monarchs in their concurrent claims of both being "King of the Wends", in addition to being king of the Danes and Swedes respectively. The Wends were a somewhat vaguely defined non-homogeneous ancient group of people (now since long mixed up with other groups) living in what became Pomerania, on the south shore of the Baltic Sea (in today's Germany and Poland). The Danish king had some supremacy over part of the area around 1200 and a small part of Pomerania was a Swedish possession 1648-1815. The title "King of the Wends" (in Latin, Danish, or Swedish) occurred on Danish and Swedish coins until the mid 19th century but was not officially removed until 1972 respectively 1973. New monarchs ascended the thrones those years and both unceremonially waived the claim. Just as well, since there hadn't really been any Wends around to rule for many centuries by then.

Here is a homely 1688 solidus stuck in Gdansk under King Jan Sobieski of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth:

1687

A couple of English coins with the portrait of King James II...

Fourpence:


Crown: