Tag: Austria (Modern Period)

There are vanishingly few early modern coins that depict a peasant. The great exception is the so-called 1528 huldigungstaler (“homage taler”) of Habsburg Ferdinand I. We ask why, of all things, peasants feature so prominently on this representative coin.

In the Freistadt District in Upper Austria, a hoard of 6,000 silver coins from the second half of the 15th century was found during construction work. The hiding place had been so cleverly chosen that the coins were not discovered for more than five centuries.

Have you ever wondered why there were so many large gold coins weighing several ducats in the early modern period? We’ll show you with the help of some spectacular examples from the upcoming Numismatica Genevensis auction.

Are you sure that all your coins are authentic? Particularly popular collector coins are frequently counterfeited. The expert Peter Zgorzynski shows in several articles how counterfeits can be identified. Today we take a closer look at Austrian ducats.

Rudolf II went down in history as an unworldly emperor hiding in the witches’ kitchens of alchemists. His brothers stole his imperial crown while he was still alive. Justly? Unjustly? Let’s try to answer this question.