Yes, apparently there is such and thing. I recently came across an auction whereby they had this coin listed under Russia Ducat 1849, mint mark sword, St. Petersburg. Schl. 141 (Netherlands). 3.45 g. Gold. Extremely fine "Imitation of the Dutch prototype struck in Russia" With my interest now peaked I quickly grabbed my K&M Standard Catalog of World Gold Coins, nad could not find a ducat listed under Russia. I did find an 1849 listed under Netherlands. So I then pulled out my Friedberg Gold Coins of the World and low and behold I found a ducat under Russia... Fr. 161. It has several mint years listed. My question to you all (and especially our resident ducat expert GDJMSP). How can you tell the difference between a 1849 Russian Ducat and a 1849 Netherlands Ducat? The auction listing noted the sword mint mark - St Petersburg, but from what I can find all 1849 Ducats have a sword mint mark. Here is a photo from GDJMSP's Netherland's collection: I can see no difference between the two. Is there there a story behind the Russian Ducat or is the reference listing in the Freidberg and K&M strictly a technical issue and there is no "Russian" ducat??
The mintage of the Netherlands issue was quite low while the Russian issue was huge - about 24 million if memory serves. I figured out once how to tell them apart - now I'm gonna have to find the notes 'cause danged if I can remember right off :desk:
Doug,that would be interesting.Are there separate listings,including photos,in the 19th Century Krause catalogue,plus notes on how to tell them apart? Aidan.
Doug,you could email michaelt@krause.com so that they can rectify this omission from their listing.Every small piece of new information will help improve Krause. BTW,have you seen the 21st Century Krause catalogue yet? It is a nice red colour,but a lot of coins aren't even depicted,even though there are descriptions. Aidan.
Russian coins is under my speciality. The catalogue is spot on this time. Doug, you should save the files that I have included. Yes, there were "Russian ducats" which were minted in St. Petersburg as a big major scam to flood the European market. The project appearently started from 1768 and it was getting quite obvious in 1798 that the Russians were up to no good especially when you comapre the image of the ducats to this: Here is a useful material reference that you should read and it will tell you the differences. It seems that the Russian designs were a bit too superior that got them into trouble. Now instead of reading all my text, reading the real material would be a lot better. The following images are from Uzdenikov, Russian coins 1700-1917 second edition. (250k for each file) http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/7206/rusducat1yl0.jpg http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/1119/rusducat2gy2.jpg http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/2939/rusducat3ia8.jpg http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/8857/rusducat4wo0.jpg http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/4841/rusducat5wq4.jpg
Thanks gx :thumb: That's a lot more info than I was ever able to figure out - best I could do was discover the differences in the arrows and the caduceus. But that was enough once I figured it out. BTW - mintage for the Netherlands issue was just a bit over 14,000.
I'm going to have to get me an example of each type of the 1849 for my collection....fits perfect into what I'm looking for in my world gold collection
Glad that helped you silvereaagle82. The original Dutch ducat at that time are actually quite hard to find, but the Russian counterfeited ducats, although they are minted in real gold are getting difficult to find at times because quite a fair amount are supposely melted down. Good luck in finding both of them! Doug, would yours be the original Dutch or the counterfeited Russian version? I can't quite tell from the angle here.
