Coins And History

Frederick II, King of Prussia (1740-86) is generally considered one of the great figures of German history, as well as having an interesting personality combining military leadership with being gay and a pretty good flautist (and composer of flute music). I have a CD of his music. He had a beautiful palace in Potsdam, near Berlin, Sans-Souci, until COVID a popular tourist sight. Under him Prussia enormously increased its territory, power and population, grabbing Silesia after defeating Austria in 1742 and in 1772 partitioning Poland with Russia. However, it is sometimes forgotten that his fortunes were not always so favourable and in December 1761 Prussia looked like it had been defeated in the Seven Years' War and would lose substantial territory.

The Seven Years' War began with a Prussian invasion of Saxony in August 1756. All the big European powers got involved, Britain on the Prussian side opposed by France, Austria and Russia. Prussian territories were widely dispersed. In particular, the historic Duchy of Prussia in the east, originally the territory of the Teutonic Knights, was about 300 not easily travelled miles from Berlin, the capital of Brandenburg, the major part of the kingdom to the west, separated by West Prussia which was part of Poland. Russia invaded East Prussia in the summer of 1757. After a series of indecisive but bloody battles with some huge casualties, the Russians with Austrian help inflicted a massive defeat on the Prussians at the Battle of Kunersdorf in August 1759 and occupied East Prussia. In September 1760 Russian and Austrian forces briefly occupied Berlin and in December 1761 Frederick was on the point of defeat.

During the Russian occupation Tsarina Elisabeth, daughter of Peter the Great, struck coins for her Prussian territory at the Prussian mint in Königsberg. They followed the Prussian denominations and even bear the Prussian eagle on the reverse, although on the obverse Friedrich was replaced by Elizabeth. Here is an example

PRUSSIA - Russian Occupation 18 Gröscher 1759



Obv.: ELISAB:I:G: IMP: TOT: RUSS (Empress of all the Russias). Crowned bust r.
Rev.:MONETA:REGNIRUSSIAE: Crowned Prussian eagle l. holding sceptre & orb with 18 in shield on breast) , with tail dividing 17 59
28 mm 6.12 g.

At a time when Frererick and other rulers were issuing debased coinage to finance their war expenses, these coins, struck to the prewar standards, were very popular. Some more were struck in Moscow to meet demand while debased coinage from other parts of the kingdom of Prussia was banned. In the ultimate compliment, counterfeiters on behalf of Frederick produced debased imitations of Elizabeth's coins in Berlin. These can be distinguished by RUSSIA or RUSSIAE instead of RUSS in the obverse legend.

In December 1761 Frederick was saved by a miracle. After a stroke Elizabeth, who was very overweight, died on Christmas Day 1761 (5 January 1762 under "new" Gregorian calendar). She was succeeded by her nephew Peter III. Although Peter's mother was a daughter of Peter the Great, his father was a German duke, Karl Friedrich of Holstein-Gottorp. He spent his childhood in Germany - his Russian was never good - before Elizabeth brought him to Russia as her successor at the age of 14. He was strongly pro-Prussian, had a correspondence with Frederick and opposed Elizabeth's war on Prussia. On becoming Tsar, he immediately stopped the war and handed back all the territories Russian troops had conquered. He then negotiated an alliance with Prussia, ratified by Frederick in June 1762. Frederick was saved.

The last Russian coins for East Prussia were struck in Elizabeth's name in 1761. In 1763 the Königsberg mint started to strike coins with Frederick's portrait once again.

 

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1745 LIMA halfcrown.

Coins with LIMA below the bust were struck from silver taken by a small British naval squadron under George Anson, charged with disrupting Spanish possessions on the Pacific coast and capturing as much Spanish bullion as possible. The fleet left in 1740 and initially took £30,000 or so in captured bullion. Due to the condition of the crew which had suffered badly from disease and the loss of most of the fleet, Anson in Centurion made the decision to return home via Macau which was reached in November 1742, where repairs were made and the following April set out to find a Spanish treasure ship.

On 20th June he found what he was looking for and attacked the Spanish galleon Neustra Señora de Covadonga off the Philippines. The ship was heavily laden with treasure from Mexico, with the silver alone amounting to 1.3m 8 reales and 35,000 ounces of bullion. Gold and other plunder was also taken. They returned to Macau for further repairs following the battle and finally set off for England in December 1743, arriving in London in June 1744.

With so much silver available to be recoined into local currency, it is little wonder that LIMA coins are one of the cheapest ways to obtain an example of George II's silver currency, with sixpences, shillings, halfcrowns and crowns all readily available to this day.

 

A really stunning LIMA halfcrown and a nice writeup. While not an expert in coin grading of these it appears to fall well within the ms category. Also very nice untouched toning. Of course grading solely by looking at a picture without the coin in hand is guesswork. But from this photo, it appears to be a really nice piece.

Merely out of curiosity; why do you call it a "1745 halfcrown" when it says "1746" on the reverse?

 

Misprunt (aka typo). They were struck in both years, such was the quantity of silver available.