I've got this coin yesterday. It is a silver patagon of the Bishopric of Liege. Ruler: prince-bishop Maximilian Heinrich von Bayern (1650-1688). Silver .875, weight - 28,1 g. I payed 265 $ for it.
And as the inscription says, the guy was also prince elector, and archbishop of Cologne, and don't ask me what else. Cannot comment about the price or value, but you two have something in common: Maximilian Heinrich was a coin collector as well ... Christian
Apparently so. Remember the saying that collecting coins is (well, used to be) the hobby of kings? It sure became popular, among those who could afford it, in the early Renaissance (roughly 15c). Maximilian Heinrich was not a king, but still quite an influential ruler. Here is a German Wikipedia article which also says he collected coins. (In the first paragraph of the "Persönlichkeit" section you see "Gold" and "Münzen" ...) Side note: In his "Prussian Chronicle" Simon Grunau wrote, around 1500, about another bishop (Stephen, bishop of Kulm/Chełmno): "He sat in his castle and spent the day looking at strange coins that he had. People said that he was eager to have coins from all countries. He did that out of stupidity, rather than for other reasons, when he was a very old man." Oh those weird collectors. Christian
"He did that out of stupidity,"... sounds like mr. grunau was jealous of the good bishopos coin collection to me. :rolling: that's a greak looking coin SM!
Just FYI for the other dummies like me. Thanks for posting the neat coin. I was not familiar with the Bishopric of Liège so I looked it up in Wikipedia. Apparently is was a state of the Holy Roman Empire in the Low Countries in what is present-day Belgium.
You may know the joke about Lucerne, the city in Switzerland which is called Luzern in German, Lausanne in French and Locarno in Italian. (Of course the three are different Swiss cities.) Well, in the case of Liège that is true: It is Liège in (local) French, but Luik in Dutch and Lüttich in German ... Christian
