This one has me stuck. 19 mm, 2.11 g, copper or billon One side has some sort of animal (bear? ugly horse?) on a wall, other is worn down. Numista search by weight and diameter range didn't turn up anything close. I don't even know if it's a token, or an official coin. Looks old, maybe Central European. Any advice welcomed!
Try Bern (Switzerland). Their crest is a bear climbing a wall. I haven't looked for it, but I'm pretty sure it is indeed a coin (a minor denomination), and yes, old- probably late 1700s/early 1800s.
Thanks. I hadn't thought of Switzerland. I looked on Numista and through my Krause books for 1600-1900 and didn't see anything close yet. I've always wondered if Krause leaves out a lot of the minor coins from various states, though...
I wouldn't put it past them. I'm sure there are also plenty of gaps in Numista's database, but I've come to rely on them for a lot more lately, simply because their pages have so much more detail (diameters and other specs, etc.) than the Krause database on the NGC website goes into. I did a very cursory browse through Bern on Numista, but no luck. However, I wasn't at it very long. I'm pretty confident that piece features the bear from Bern. Edit: no, it appears not, after all. See subsequent posts. It looks like @The Eidolon has stumbled across a better clue to the mystery.
I've found quite a few that were in Krause and not on Numista, and vice-versa. The lack of pictures for some Krause entries is painful. Matching a coin just from a description is quite hard. For a number of Italian States from the 1600-1700s, my (obsolete) Krause books start with the large silvers and don't list any of the minors, even when I know that they exist. Sometimes I'll get lucky with a search through MA shops for a keyword. Hmmm... Try "bear wall" Anhalt-Bernburg looks promising! Here's one from Numista which looks close, but none perfectly match the Bear. Some kind of copper 1 Pfening, 1700s. There are several types.
Now I'm not even sure of the denomination any more. The blocks of the wall don't match any of the pictures on Numista closely. Krause lists denominations of: 1, 1.5, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 8 (=1 mariengroschen) pfenning. Some are copper and some are billon, and the diameters and weights vary. Some aren't pictured. In this era there could be multiple similar versions of a given coin type anyway. Mine has these traits: 19 mm, 2.11 g 6 large, squarish blocks on the top of the wall. Bear head points forward, not much tilted upward at all. City gate right side slopes outward. Blocks in the wall slightly rectangular with small spaces between them instead of large spaces like a checkerboard. Bear rear foot on left edge of block, but does not extend down between blocks. None of the ones pictured seem like a perfect match... It's also similar in size and weight to the billon 0.350 fine 1/24th thaler from 1822-1827. Front foot on mine angles back, and their picture looks straight, though.
Aha! You’re right! Anhalt-Bernberg, indeed! Sorry- Bern was a false lead. I was kinda close, but no cigar. Well done! Those “checkerboard” squares were bedeviling me. You’re much closer to the truth, now.
I didn't actually know it was even a bear at first. With the crown it looked kind of like a moose with antlers... Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.
Yeah, I was pretty confident on the critter's identity as a bear, and the bear from Bern immediately came to mind, due to its similar stance. I forgot about the very similar one from Anhalt-Bernberg.
I guess there must be some historical links between Bern in Switzerland and Anhalt-Bernberg in Germany, since “Bern” is in both their names, and their heraldic crests are so beary similar. But I have not presently gone down the Wikipedia rabbit hole on that topic. Given my propensity for Wikipedia link-hopping, I’d probably start out in Bern or Anhalt-Bernberg, only to find myself reading about ancient Etruscan basketweaving techniques or some exotic citrus fruit or endangered marsupial two hours later, having completely forgotten where I began. “Wikipedia freefall”, I call it.
I believe "Bern" actually means "bear" or something similar. I think the root of the word "Berlin" is also from bear. Sorry I didn't see this earlier as I'm a collector of bear coins and could have told you right away. Here's a few that I have.
A cursory check yielded nothing for me. Sorry, but I don't have more time to devote to it. Hope you can match it and then post for us to know.
