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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;willieboyd2, post: 3250730, member: 4910&quot;]The zwanziger is an Austrian coin which circulated in California during the Gold Rush period of the 1840&#039;s and 1850&#039;s.</p><p><br /></p><p>This coin&#039;s historic date of 1848 and it&#039;s California connection make this coin a most interesting one.</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="http://www.brianrxm.com/posts/post_austria_kreuzer20_1848.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p>Austria 20 Kreuzer (Zwanziger) 1848</p><p>Silver, 26.0 mm, 6.65 gm, 0.583 fine, Vienna Mint</p><p>Catalog: Krause World Coins 1801-1900 number KM 2208, minted from 1837 to 1848</p><p><br /></p><p>Austria had many monetary systems over the years and in the 1840&#039;s they used a gulden which was worth around 75 US cents. There were 60 kreuzer to the Gulden making a 20 kreuzer coin worth US 25 cents. A 20 kreuzer coin was called a zwanziger after <i>zwanzig</i>, the German word for &quot;20&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p>The coin had a silver weight of 0.125 troy ounce which would make the silver worth US 16 cents at the time.</p><p><br /></p><p>The book <i>California Pioneer Fractional Gold</i> (1983) by Breen and Gillio stated that Austrian zwanzigers (20 kreuzer) were valued at 25 cents. The book notes that a rich German man sent to his son in San Francisco a large cask full of them as a present.</p><p><br /></p><p>The book <i>Private Gold Coinage of California</i> (1913) by Edgar Adams mentions three foreign coins in circulation in California: Spanish pesetas, Austrian zwanzigers, and French francs.</p><p><br /></p><p>Although the Austrian coins circulated, the United States government never legalized them as it had done with Spanish and other foreign coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>The book <i>A Handbook for Travellers on The Continent</i> published by John Murray of London in 1856, mentions the zwanziger where it is worth 8 British pence, about 16 US cents.</p><p><br /></p><p><i>The name zwanziger properly applies to Austria alone, where this coin goes for 20 kreutzers, and bears upon it the figure 20, the 1/2 zwanziger or zehner passes for 10, and the 1/4 for 5 kreutzers; while in Bavaria and Würtemberg the same coins pass respectively for 24, 12, and 6 kr.</i></p><p><br /></p><p>And a final zwanziger mention, just in time for Christmas, from Alexandre Dumas&#039; 1844 novel <i>The Story of a Nutcracker</i>, the basis for Tchaikovsky&#039;s ballet:</p><p><br /></p><p>In Nuremberg (Bavaria), the inventor Drosselmayer&#039;s brother explains how he acquired a special &quot;Crackatook&quot; nut needed to remove an enchantment from the king&#039;s daughter:</p><p><br /></p><p><i>He picked up his bag to find that all the nuts were indeed crushed, with one exception; this he presented to me with an unusual smile, inviting me to buy it for one new 1720 zwanziger coin, declaring that the day would come when I wouldn&#039;t regret my purchase, expensive as it might seem at the time. I fumbled in my pocket, and was astonished to discover a zwanziger coin corresponding exactly to the one the man had asked for. This struck me as such an unlikely coincidence that I gave him my zwanziger, in return for which he handed me the nut and disappeared.</i></p><p><br /></p><p><img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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