How Far Back Can We Go? Third Edition! Ended At 1487 Waiting On 1486

I think we need a moderator decision on this -- are Livonian solidus coins valid for advancing this thread?

Livonia -- 1646 solidus:

I'm going to anyway. This coin was posted on Sunday (half past midnight, sure, but still Sunday), so there's no reason for me to post before Monday (probably Monday afternoon).

Incidentally, this 1646 looks like better silver than any other example I've ever seen. So if the color is right, it almost certainly was really made in 1646; the contemporary counterfeits were made of very debased silver.


That said, as we go further, we would need rules on known near-contemporary restrikes anyway.
For example, I have a coin dated 1606 (well, the equivalent in another calendar) which was really made in 1617-18, apparently with an original die (the other die was also original, but from 1610 or so). Would it count as 1606 for this thread if/when we get that far? (Or should it be posted with 1617 coins?)

Oh, that reminds me of a funny story.

Many of you probably know the background of American 1804 dollars, but just in case, I'll summarize it anyway.
The mint was making 1803 dated dollars in 1804, originally, but recorded them under the year 1804 they were actually made in. Then no dollars were made at all for several decades.
Then come 1830s some important foreign persons were supposed to get a gift of a set of all US coin denominations (or something like that), which included the dollar. Someone had the bright idea of getting the last recorded date for all of them, which for the dollar was 1804.
But they couldn't find any 1804 dollars anywhere (because there never were any in the first place), so someone got the presses, made some dies, and struck off a few dollars dated 1804 for the foreign sets.
(Then there was something else, which resulted in the Class II and Class III 1804 dollars. But I'm less sure of the details here.)
Anyway, this is basically why the 1804 dollar is so rare and famous.

Now, for the story.
When the original How Far Back Can We Go came to 1804, someone jokingly asked if anyone had an 1804 dollar.
Someone else proceeded to post a Bank of England dollar, with a comment along the lines of "oh, sorry, I don't have any of the American 1804 dollars, so here's a British 1804 dollar".
(Can't recall what it said exactly - though it's probably trivially findable with the search - but it definitely was very funny.)

In this case, the differentiation is because the die for the other side is one from a post-1606 reign (i.e. the legend gives the name of a later ruler); this combination is normally found in a reduced weight (though I have not weighed my example) and associated with a Swedish counterfeit program (when Novgorod mint was under their control).

I do not know where I got the 1617-8 date from, actually.
I had previously referred to it as 1615-17, which is probably the date I had in mind; this is what it is attributed for in the Kleschinov-Grishin catalogue - which had sadly since disappeared from the convenient site I was using at the time (apparently due to copyright violation), so I couldn't check it directly (at least, not without downloading full copies of the catalogue from shady-looking sites).
I did check a few other references, which tended to say "1611-17" (the full range of Swedish dealings in Novgorod). I do not know where Kleshchinov and Grishin got the narrower range from. In any case, a coin actually made in 1606 would not have carried the name (if nearly invisible on my example) of a post-1606 ruler, so it was certainly made later; and in any case there is no specific year.

(In this case, I'll probably post it after 1606, because that is the date written on it, and there's no specific year anyway. But someone else might have another, completely different type with a similar story.)

In any case, I've slipped so much it's now Tuesday morning, so here's my 1645...



The 45 should be visible in the upper left of the second image.
This one is not as obviously silver as the previous, but it does have lots of visible silver.

Switzerland/Chur -- 1644 1 kreuzer: