All I am doing since April 1st is work/ however I always have coins/ auctions on my mind. Today, I was thinking about all the drab/ kitch most mints are turning out for circulation/ with the exception of the UK which kept older classic designs I then thought, how neat it would have been to have been a "collector" in the Baroque period, living in Salzburg for example. They struck gold from the Quarter Dukat to the massive 24/ 36/ 44 Dukaten/ nice AR Thalers too. Please post your Baroque coins.... AV Quarter Dukat ND (1712) Transylvania HRE Karl VI 1711-42
Maybe not the absolute apex of coinage, considering the contribution of the ancient Greeks and the Renaissance medalists and so on, but then again, yes- definitely a very high point indeed. The Baroque era was also near the apex of Classical music, too, in my opinion. Lovely coin as usual.
Beautiful gold coin, as usual, Panzerman. And Rob, nice corollary addition to the subject. Made my Sunday morning a little more pleasant.
If you stuck me on a desert island with a solar-powered MP3 player that could only play one single piece of music on repeat, Bach’s 3rd Brandenburg Concerto would win out over even Beethoven’s 9th Symphony or any of the 20th century music I love.
This is a humble little 3 kreuzer, but I found it in my local dealer's junk bin for $4 and even the little ones from the Baroque era are fairly attractive (even for Leopold the Hogmouth): Austria Tyrol 3 Kreutzer Leopold I of Hapsburg 1684 Armored bust right, LEOPOLDVS·D:G·R·I·S·A·G·H.B·R· / Two shields under a crown, left Further Austria (Vorderösterreich), right Tyrol, value below, ARCHID·A·B·CO·TY· 1684 (1.37 grams / 19 mm) Dec. 29, 2018 $4.00 And although I just shared this on a "gold" thread of @panzerman here is a Salzburg thaler. This too was at my local dealer's, but not in his junk bin!
@Marsyas Mike - I’d scoop up $4 oldies like that Hogmouth kreuzer all day long! Nice grab. We can’t all be @panzerman, but at least we can vicariously enjoy his beauties here.
Does the Spanish Pillar Dollar (8 reales) count? I have this one as part of my Colonial/Pre-Federal collection.
The baroque era is the sweet spot within my focus area of German States bishopric material. This one was my newest addition a few weeks ago. Dated 1753, the Bamberg medal falls on the tail end of the era.
Thanks for posting your great "Baroque " era coins Hopefully, other members will pitch in with theirs. Here are some more of mine....
That's cute, a funny non-sequitur. The Baroque era ended with the advent of the Classical era. Most histories give the dates as 1600-1750 for Baroque and are not so precise for Classical (1750 to 1820 or 1830). See for example: https://www.naxos.com/education/brief_history.asp Vermont Public Radio sez: "The death of J. S. Bach in 1750 has traditionally been regarded as the end of the Baroque Period. The well-known Classical era of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven is said to have begun in 1775. The transitional, 25 year period between is known as Rococo." I look at broad cultural trends. While music, plastic arts and painting can lead or lag literature and science, they tend to all go together. 1775 carries a lot of meaning. And as for Romantic, I look to Beethoven as the transition: early Classical, later Romantic. You can see the same trends in science. Newton's method--though not Newton himself; he was dead--dominated the "Classical" era. I do not know an easy date for the "Romantic" period of science, but there was a transition with the life of Gauss who took Newtonian mathematics as far as it could go while at the same time physics was grappling with Hertz and Maxwell. In politics we see same things. The American Revolution launched the "classical" era. But nationalism and eventually imperialism were the "Romantic" reaction of the 1830s to perhaps 1871. To bring this around to a topic closer to home, it would be hard for me to think of a Romantic coin versus a Classical. Numismatic art is classical. Period. We are so bankrupted by it that we call the Mercury Dime, Standing Liberty Quarter, and Walking Liberty Half Dollar the "Renaissance of American coinage" but the word "Renaissance" implies that something great came first, then there was a lull, then a rebirth. Nothing like that happened. All that happened was that American coinage fell deeper into the Classical chasm dug by the Chicago Exposition of 1892.
I guess I meant “Classical” music in the wider sense, as opposed to what, “modern” music? I wasn’t aware that “Classical” music had a specific date span. I always just considered the Baroque as a subset of Classical. I mean, if you were to go into a record store to purchase a recording of that Bach Brandenburg concerto, you’d go to the Classical section, after all.
I know. I was just being pedantic. Like "cent" versus "penny" and "Mercury" versus "Winged Head Liberty." What really throws the editors is "Liberty Seated" versus "Seated Liberty."
The thread presents very many very nice coins, but yours strike me as being especially within the Baroque canon. We collapse decades and centuries when we speak of "the Renaissance" etc. It took generations, lifetimes, for art to expand and explore from the Renaissance forward. Die-cutting is a special skill. After Antonio Pisano (Pisanello) invented the art medal, it still took a long time for the craft to be absorbed into the culture. Your German states examples would display well in a museum next to Caravaggio or Vela.
Yes, @wcg‘s offerings here definitely nail it, right on the head. (PS- and that’s saying something, considering how comparatively difficult it is for anyone else’s coins to shine in a @panzerman thread.)
Hey LM , check out this local "chamber rock" duo from Houston. They are both classically trained, yet they mostly play their own compositions. watch They're called ' Mystery Loves Company '.
Cool, thanks. I like bands that mash genres together, particularly when it’s the fusion of Classical and Rock. Speaking of Baroque, here’s my favorite prog rocker, Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, tootling his flute in his interpretation of Bouree from J.S. Bach, with an orchestra joining in. It’s not exactly Classical, nor Rock, in the purest sense. I guess you could argue that it’s a little bit jazzy. It’s hard to categorize. I think it’s wonderful, personally. I think Bach might approve, aside from Ian’s little stylistic conniption at the end. (Apologies for the brief diversion of this discussion of the Baroque era and its coins into music, but the music definitely has a Baroque flavor to it in this case, and is based on a 300-year-old composition.)