Post Your Kingdom Of Poland Coins By Monarch 1587 - 1795

Sigismund III Vasa was already the crown prince of Sweden (son of King John III) when he was elected King of Poland, and was crowned in 1587. He was the grandson of King Zygmunt I of Poland through his mother, and the nephew of Queen Anna, wife of Stefan Bathory who he succeeded.

He would be a prolific coiner: in the Gumowski catalog, entries from 817 to 1529 are under his name (that is, almost as many different types as had been minted in the previous 600 year history of the kingdom!)

He inherited the monetary union and reforms of his predecessor, as well as these 6 mints, which I've listed by both their Polish and German names: Poznan (Posen) and Olkusz, which minted for "Poland proper" (the old kingdoms of Greater and Lesser Poland); Malbork (Marienburg) and Gdansk (Danzig) for former Prussian lands on the Baltic; Vilnius for Lithuania, and Riga for the part of Livonia under the Polish-Lithuanian crown.

For the first 15 years or so of his reign, mostly smaller denomination silver coins were produced: denars, shillings (solidus), groats (groschen, grosz) and trojaks (3 groat, dreigroschen). Three additional mints were opened in the first years of his reign: Bydgoszcz (Bromberg, 1594), Wschowa (Fraustadt 1595) and Lublin (1595) and a 6 groat coin (szostak) was produced in addition to smaller denominations. Finally, a new Krakow mint was opened and began producing coins in 1600, replacing Poznan and Olkusz which closed in 1601.

Here is a 1589 trojak of Poznan featuring an early portrait of the king with a full beard Kopicki 923?, Iger P.89.1.a
On the reverse we have:
(Top) Polish eagle, Vasa coat of arms, Lithuanian knight
(Center) GROS ARG/TRIP REG/POLONIA (Silver 3 groat of Kingdom of Poland)
(Bottom) Poznan mint mark=crossed keys, I(shield)D, the initials and shield of Jan Dulski the royal treasurer. Date (15)89.
We'll see all kinds of small variations in this design appear across the different mints and years.

@tdz, glad you provided the link here!

I've been waiting to post a few coins of Siggie III from the late 16th Century. Here are two from Poland. First is a Schilling dated (15)92 AD and attributed as Kopicki 620 (Malbork mint). Second is a 3 Groschen dated 1597 AD and attributed as Kopicki 1055.

Your trojak appears to also be Iger O.92.2.d. (I'm not sure how many 1597 trojak subtypes are identified by Kopicki).
92.2 type is distinguished from the 92.1 type by the narrow band at the base of the crown.
Type d has lettering R POLON MDL obv, and diamonds (rather than dots) punctuating the rev legends.

Here is a 1592 Malbork trojak to go with your shilling.


The ring and triangle at the bottom of the reverse are the mint mark for Malbork.

Thanks scopru and IGE for the comments.

I think that Sigismund III issued so many coins that nice grades remain attainable, at least for the smaller denominations. There are many MS examples of the Malbork trojaks on the market. These trojaks are not large coins, about the size of a U.S. nickel, but the designs are attractive, and thaler size Polish coins from this era in nice grade run well into the thousands.

When we get into the 1600s with this ruler, we'll see some larger silver. At least 1/4 thaler coins, and hopefully someone out there has something even larger.

Beautiful coin, Squire, and glad to see you on this thread. Looks like it has its nice original patina. I'll post my orts in a few days ... they've been cleaned but I love them despite their flaws!

By the time your coin was issued, he's been on the throne nearly 35 years and has aged a bit. And the fashion for full beards had given way to the goatee.

Here are my last coins of the 16th Century issued under the authority of Sigismund III. The first is a Schilling from (15)93 from Livonia (Riga mint). It is attributed as Kopicki 8116 and the flan may have had a clip when this coin was struck. The second is a Livonian 3 Groschen dated 1596 AD and attributed as Kopicki 8192. It has a pretty nice spanning die crack on the obv. The third is also a Livonian Groschen, but dated 1598 AD and attributed as Kopicki 8194.









@tdz, thank you for your previous help with the Iger attribution.

@spence, nice set of coins from the Riga mint!
My understanding of the history of this part of the Baltic:
In mid-1550s following the Livonian Wars, part of Livonia was ceded to Lithuania, and part remained independent as Courland. This first part became known as the Duchy of Livonia, but was under control of first Lithuania, and then, following the union of Poland and Lithuania, the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth. SO, starting with the reign of Stefan Batory. we see coins with the Polish ruler minted at Riga.
I think near the end of SIgismund III's reign, this territory was lost.

I will check on the Iger attributions for those trojaks later. I've also got some die cracks on some of mine (though mostly reverse. That one's a beaut! But still a nice sharp portrait).

I'll throw one more mint into the mix with this 1595 trojak from the Wschowa (Fraustadt) mint. I've now managed to pick up a trojak fro each of the 8 mints that were operating in the 1590s. We've covered half of those mints in the thread at this point, and Squire has added in Gdansk which started up in 1600.

Polish poltorak (1.5 groat) 1623