Need Some Help Identifying Some Medieval (German I Believe) Coins

@numismat, that is a wonderful starter set. I'm really happy that you are getting more into medieval coins.

I'll work on identifying the ones that AYM skipped over. The two coins that are #10 are from the German City State of Goslar. They look to me like half-mattiasgroshen coins. You can read a partial inscription on the rev: MONETA NOVA GOSLAR. The attribution is Saurma #3962 and I'd say they date from the 15th Century. Here is the link:

http://herbison.com/someoldcoins.or...r/2/3962.htm

Thanks so much Spence, it would appear that #10 is then two different coins. The one on the left matches the coin in your link, with the obverse legends "MONETA NOVA GOS". The one on the right looks like it has the legend "SANCTUS MATHIAS". Using the info you so kindly gave me, I found one on ebay matching it, described also as a matthiasgroschen. Would it be weird for a half and whole matthiasgroschen to be the same size, or am I missing something?

And thank you Paralyze, you've steered me in a direction I can research :)

In trying to research coin #9, I came across a description in a 19th century book that appears to match the legends. I can't make too much sense of it other than that it is listed under Cassel. No luck finding an image though.

Appears to match number 183 in legends, not sure of the description of the design.

At least I was right about Hessen! Good job nailing it down.

Hessen-Landgraf (Kassel) Brabanter-Kreuz 1/2 (Halber) Albus of Wilhelm I. The obverse is St. Peter. Minted 1483-1493.
Reference is Schütz 371

@numismat, that #11 is a tough one, despite all the clues and your very good photos. I've been trying to channel my inner BobL for a couple hours now, but am still coming up short on this groschen.

Here is what I think I see:

Obv (second pic): The imperial eagle faces left and has pairs of annulets (or perhaps the two-digit date 88) inside of a shield. The shield has a flower to the right and left. The first part of the inscription (between the cross at 12 o'clock and about 5:30) is the ruler's name. The second or third digit looks like an E, so I spent some time looking for a LEONARDO, even though that isn't a very Germanic name. I also spent time looking for HENRICVS as the last few letters are a good match for VS. Then, at about 6 o'clock, the letters DG are visible. Then, there is a bunch of letters of increasing visibility, ending in perhaps OR. It could be CTOR, but I'm not sure. Just a smidge less than I can decypher.

Rev (first pic): I see an interesting heraldic shield in quarters with numbers one and four being checkerboard and numbers two and three being rampant lions or gryphons or eagles. This is quite similar to some of the shields of Bavaria, although instead of squares, there is a diamond checkerboard. The shield has a flower to the right and left. The inscription clearly starts off with a cross and then MONETA NOV and then a smear where the name of the City State would be. The ending of the inscription is something like ANDBOR. This is written in Latin, so this cannot be split into AND BOR.

I hope someone can take up the search from here.

Yep you got it--definitely from Brandenburg. Let's try these for the inscriptions:

Obv: FREDERICVS DG IMPI ELECTOR
Rev: MONETA NOVA MA BRANDBOR

I think that the term "elector" safely dates this to Frederick II (AKA Irontooth, who became Elector in 1440 AD and died in 1471 AD):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_..._Brandenburg

I agree that this doesn't fit exactly perfect in Saurma, but remember that this book is just a catalog of a collection rather than a comprehensive listing of coins. The difficulty that we have with this coin is pretty indicative of the current situation with attributing medieval German coins (a lack of good reference books). Krause's books start in 1501 AD. Levinson's book goes back to 1481 AD for Brandenburg, but only covers coins with dates. As you see now, Saurma's coverage is pretty limited. To really sink your teeth into these coins, you'd have to get Barhfeldt's Das Muenzwesen der Mark Brandenburg. That guy was printed in 1889, but may still be somewhat available digitally.

Spence pretty much nailed it.

There are a LARGE number of books, divided by electorate/landgraviate/bishopric/free city/.etc, e.g. Krug on Bamberg coins
Not only are many of them out of print, prices (especially here in the US) often start at "holy cow" and end up at "ludicrous" or worse. (Would you pay $200 for a 100 year old book of less than 50 pages covering the coinage of less than a hundred years' span for a single state?) This is partly because the nature of the coinage means that you could devote a period of months just to analyze all the varieties of a particular denomination and issuer.

Best sources are auction catalogs (WAG, Stephen Album), collection indices (Sammlungen in German, e.g. Merseberg), MA-Coins listings, etc. unless you plan to become a numismatic specialist on the subject in which case you will have a library possibly more expensive than your collection.

For 1601 and onward, the Standard Catalog of German Coins still gets the job done nicely in most cases, and for less than a hundred dollars.

For British collectors of coinage from the same time period (pre-17th c.) they have North and Seaby, which neatly bring together a ton of information, but there is no real equivalent for the German States.

I have an extensive library, but one that mostly covers 17th century and up, including the 1601 and up German coins catalog from Krause. I'm not about to invest thousands more for a medieval reference library, but at least there are plenty of online resources available. And I notice a lot of the older books are available full view on google books or academic portals, like the Newman Library