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

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paralyse's Avatar
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 Posted 06/17/2017  03:27 am  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add paralyse to your friends list Get a Link to this Reply
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
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"Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done." -- Louis D. Brandeis
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 Posted 06/17/2017  04:09 am  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add Numismat to your friends list Get a Link to this Reply
Thanks! Your initial suggestion led me in the right direction, much obliged :)
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 Posted 06/17/2017  3:48 pm  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add Spence to your friends list Get a Link to this Reply
@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.
"If you climb a good tree, you get a push."
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"The danger we all now face is distinguishing between what is authentic and what is performed."
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 Posted 06/17/2017  6:51 pm  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add Numismat to your friends list Get a Link to this Reply
Thanks Spence! Thank you so much for your time. Using the bits of legends you deciphered and a couple hours of digging, found it

https://saurma.info/1/2493.htm

Brandenburg groschen 1470-89

Edit: or maybe this one https://saurma.info/1/2483.htm

groschen 1440-1470. The "moneta nova" legends match the first one, but I only see them with both types of legends described as 1440-1470. This saurma site doesn't seem to match up to how people elsewhere are describing some of these coins.
Edited by Numismat
06/17/2017 7:06 pm
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 Posted 06/17/2017  9:42 pm  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add Spence to your friends list Get a Link to this Reply
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.

"If you climb a good tree, you get a push."
-----Ghanaian proverb

"The danger we all now face is distinguishing between what is authentic and what is performed."
-----King Adz
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 Posted 06/17/2017  9:56 pm  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add Numismat to your friends list Get a Link to this Reply
Yes I'm noticing that with painful clarity, the lack of good references. Many times I find nothing more than matching legends in an old foreign book, which still makes it difficult to figure out an identification of time and place.

Thank you guys for all your help and knowledge! :)
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 Posted 06/17/2017  11:31 pm  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add paralyse to your friends list Get a Link to this Reply
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.
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 Posted 06/18/2017  07:09 am  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add Spence to your friends list Get a Link to this Reply

Quote:
you will have a library possibly more expensive than your collection


Exactly.
"If you climb a good tree, you get a push."
-----Ghanaian proverb

"The danger we all now face is distinguishing between what is authentic and what is performed."
-----King Adz
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 Posted 06/18/2017  10:16 am  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add Numismat to your friends list Get a Link to this Reply
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
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