More new stuff

Just thought I would share a couple more of my newest acquisitions. The first is a Venetian ducat issued by the Doge of Venice, Michele Steno 1400-1413. It can be said of the Venetian ducat that it literally changed the face of the world. And it holds the distinction of being the coin continuously struck for the longest period of time - over 500 yrs.






This next coin is one whose design many of you have grown used to seeing posted by me - the Netherlands ducat. This example was struck in the province of Holland in 1595. This design is still being used today on gold ducats issued the Royal Dutch Mint - after over 400 yrs of continuous striking.

 

The obverse design is that of St.Mark, the patron saint of Venice, with the Doge kneeling before him. In abbreviated Latin the legend has the name of the Dodge, and "Sacred money of Venice." The reverse legend reads "May This Royal Ducat Be Dedicated To Thee, O Christ" around an
image of Christ standing, surrounded by the stars of Heaven, holding his
right hand in Benediction and a book of Gospels in his left.

For a brief history and more information in general about the gold ducat - The Ducat

 

I figured you might comment on that Nd - it is one of things that attracted me so strongly to this particular coin. The coin is slabbed by NGC and graded as MS63 - that helps explain the surface of the coin's fields. The striations or lines in the fields indicate to me that this coin was one of the first struck with dies. For in those days the technology was not such that the fields of a coin die were polished smooth. Instead they were scraped as smooth as they could be with the tools available. Then as the dies became worn from striking coins, these striations would wear away due to metal flow.

This coin to me is exceptional as I have seen very few in this condition. It was, in my opinion, the finest of a lot recently placed on auction - which of course is why I bought it

 

Polish lines - that's really quite ironic - it shows how we must adjust our way of thinking when considering coinage from this period.

To most of us in this day & age - if we saw marks like that on a coin - die polish lines would be the accepted cause and rightly so. But back then - they didn't polish dies to remove wear lines as they did in later centuries.

Lines like those on the coin below were there when the die was new. And as the die began to wear - the lines would diminish and eventually disappear. Examine this other example from the same period. Faint traces of the lines still remain - but they are no where near as prominent. And as you can tell - the die that struck this coin has suffered a great deal more wear.

 

Typically - adjustment marks are made on the coin planchets before striking. When the planchets are made they are carefully weighed. And if they are too heavy - some metal is removed by using a file. But there are also examples of coins that have adjustment marks which were made after striking. It's usually easy to see these as the marks only appear in the devices ( high points ) and not the fields.

But with this coin that is not the case obviously as the marks are only in the fields and there are none in the devices. Of course it is possible that the marks were made on the planchet prior to striking. In other words the planchet was adjusted. But what leads me to think that this is not so is that every uncirculated example of these coins looks just like this one - there are never any marks still visible in the devices even at their lowest points. And there should be if they marks were made prior to striking. For with hammer struck coins - it is extremely unusual for ALL of the adjustment marks to disappear in the devices. In fact I have never seen even one example.

That being said, picture this if you will. The die maker starts off with a piece of metal and he needs it to be flat before he can start carving the die. But the year is 1400 and they don't have things like tiny grinding wheels and fancy metal tools. But they do have files and large grinding wheels. So he gets the die as flat as he can with the tools he has. Certainly the surface if the die is almost smooth, but there are still rough lines left from the wheel or the file, but this is about as smooth as he can get it. Yes he could spend an inordinate amount of time making it smoother by rubbing it - but time is money. And the making of the dies takes long enough as it is. And they will not last very long for metalurgy has not yet reached the point that high grade steel is available. So the die will break before it strikes very many coins.

Also understand that at the time the only interest was to produce coins as quickly as possible to lessen the cost of doing so. For the mint masters of the time were paid a percentage of the coinage they produced. They weren't too particular about the surface of the coins being bright, shiny and smooth - they only cared that the weight was right and that the design was visible to identify the coin.

During this time period Venice had become masters of the world's trade - and their only interest was in pumping out these coins that made them masters, as fast as they could. They could care less about the lines in the surfaces of the coins.

 

Aint tellin