Here's another section that will be right up Antidote's street.It is about Thalers.I know that there are many types of Thalers,with the Vereinsthaler & the Reichsthaler being the most well known.I have got an Anhalt-Bernburg 1862A Mining Thaler,whose reverse contains the inscription 'SEGEN DES ANHALT BERGBAUES' with a pair of crossed hammers below.The obverse of this coin has a crowned bear walking from left to right along a castle wall with the inscription 'EIN THALER XXX EIN PFUND FEIN'.The edge inscription is 'GOTT SEGNE ANHALT'.Could anyone please tell me what the inscriptions mean,as my command of the German language is limited. I have also got a 2 Vereinsthaler from Prussia dated 1840A, which has a full Coat-of-Arms on the reverse.I can deduce that this is a Double Vereinsthaler as it says '2 THALER 3-1/2 GULDEN' & 'VEREINS MUNZE'.What does 'Vereins' mean,as I know 'Munze' means 'coin'.The edge inscription is the usual 'GOTT MIT UNS' (GOD WITH US),which is found on all Prussian mid-19th Century Thalers,& all German States post-1871 3 & 5 Mark coins. Aidan.
Babelfish translates it as "association", but Bayern Vereinsbank calls its US branches "Union Bank of Bavaria."
http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/ worked for me just now. You may be having the same kind of problem you apparently did yesterday when your ISP refused to open this site. At about the same time there were some of us here complaining of inability to reach other sites, so it's just something we have to live with occasionally. Try Babelfish again later on.
SEGEN ... Blessing of Mining in Anhalt EIN ... One Thaler XXX one pound fine (referring to the Zollverein pound, I think) GOTT ... God bless Anhalt Christian
This is more of a question about "mining thalers". What makes them different from veriensthaler, or convention thaler? Is it size, weight, of just they were not minted by government? thanks kelrn
The Vereinstaler or Convention Thaler refers to the Vienna Convention (1857) which created a sort of common base currency for several countries (Prussia, Austria, Bavaria, etc.); the word T(h)aler is of course much older. A mining thaler (Ausbeute-Taler) is made from the precious metal found in some specific region; that place or region is mentioned on the coin. Aidan's mining thaler, for example, was made from the silver found in the Anhalt mines. Christian
So everything else is the same, same weight, size, fineness of silver? Just made of the home grown so to speak metal/silver? thanks kelrn
If a mining thaler is a Vereinstaler, then yes. The Vereinstaler was Ag900 silver, its fine weight was 16.66g - all convention thalers, regardless of the issuing country, had the inscription that Aidan mentioned, "EIN THALER XXX EIN PFUND FEIN". That means, thirty thalers are made from one pound (500g) fine silver. The mining thalers issued during the Vereinstaler period also have that inscription, often abbreviated though, and the additional text "Segen des ... Bergbaus" or something similar. However, a mining thaler does not necessarily have to be a Vereinstaler. The first mining thalers (Ausbeutetaler) were issued in the 16th century, long before the Vereinstaler was "born" ... Christian
At a coin show I was looking at various Thalers, and noticed they all seemed to be medal oriented, rather than coin oriented. Is this the norm, if so does anyone know why they are oriented as they are? kelrn
Easy. What you call "medal oriented" or "medal alignment" in the US is pretty normal for most European coins. Christian
