Coins And History

I guess!
Thing is after he got elected, one of the loosing candidates invited him and his Family to a lavish banquet at his palace. The Pope's eldest son Caesare (Borgia) now a Cardinal smelled a rat. He switched wine goblets and the host ended up drinking the poisoned wine and dropped dead. So, the Pope survived the plot and ended up having an affair with the deadman's grand daughter, who was a hottie.

 

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Gotta love a happy ending to a story like that!

 

photos of Pope with wife/ daughter
new girlfriend

 

I'm not much of a European history buff. I do have one question though. I didn't read entry by entry, but I thought I read in this blog that the Pope had a wife (concubine?) and daughter, and granddaughter. I thought that the Pope, Cardinals, Priests, etc., were supposed to be celibate (definition: Celibate - 1. the state of not being married 2 a. abstention from sexual intercourse, b abstention by vow from marriage). Having read about the Catholic Church's leaders, if being celibate is a standard for being a Pope, Cardinal, Monsignor, Priest, etc., it seems that the Catholic Priests say one thing and then another.

 

That is correct, I am a good Roman Catholic and was taught that in Religion class. But many Popes where Dukes/ Princes/ nobility before they where made Cardinal. Thus many had been married/ had girlfriends before they entered the clergy.
In recent times they did practice good behaviour, good examples, like Pope Benedict aka, "God's Rottweiler"

 

I have been very impressed with the Popes and other Catholic leaders. One of my best friends is Catholic and he lives his religion.

 

IRELAND Henry VIII (1509-47) - with Katherine Howard Groat n.d. (1540-42)

Harp on reverse divides a crowned H and a crowned K. Katherine's appearance on Irish coinage was quite brief. Henry VIII's fifth wife, she was still a teenager when she married the 49 year old Henry on 28 July 1540 , almost immediately after the annulment of his marriage to Anne of Cleves, to whom Catherine had been a lady-in-waiting. She was stripped of her title as queen in November 1541 and beheaded three months later on 13 February 1542, on the grounds of treason for committing adultery with her distant cousin Thomas Culpepper, a courtier and a friend of the king. Culpepper had already been beheaded on 10 December 1541. (Wikipedia)

Coins with the K of Katherine Howard were struck from August 1540 to February 1542.

Catherine Howard

Portrait miniature by Hans Holbein the Younger

 

Mexico Peso 1949 Restrike of 1898 peso

During the summer of 1949 the San Francisco Mint struck 2,000,000 and the Mexico City Mint struck 8,000,000 copies of the Mexico Peso dated 1898 for use in China.

These were made for the Chiang Kai-Shek Nationalist government (Kuomintang), which was losing it's war with the Chinese Communists. The Nationalists needed the silver to pay their soldiers who would no longer accept paper money.

The dollar-size Mexico silver 8 reales and peso coins were used extensively in China as "trade dollars" in the 19th and early 20th centuries, so the Chinese people and merchants were familiar with them.

The Communists took over China before most of the coins could be shipped there and so they weren't needed in China.

Some of the Mexico City restrikes were sold in Mexico and all now for sale are from the Mexico City mintage.

All of the San Francisco restrikes were kept at that city's Bank of America and then shipped back to the mint to be melted.

There is more information about these coins on my (signature line) website.

 

Philip II of Spain as King of England

Philip married Henry VIII's daughter, Mary, the very Catholic of England on 25 July 1554, receiving the title of King of England , but with the conditions that England would not be obliged to provide military support to Philip's father in any war (Philip only became King in 1556), and Philip could not act without his wife's consent or appoint foreigners to office in England. Mary died childless on 17 November 1558 and was succeeded by her Protestant half-sister Elizabeth. Philip lost his title of King. 30 years later he would try to invade England with his ill-fated Spanish Armada.

The English title appeared on Philip's Spanish Netherlands écus from 1557-9, such as this one.

BRABANT Ecu Philippe 1559 Maastricht mint

Obv. legend: .PHS.D.G.HISP. ANG. Z. REX. DVX. BRA. (King of Spain and England, Duke of Brabant)

 

Hey I too have one of those critters. Mine is the dated variety.
I have it attributed as Italy Milan, ducatoon, 1582.
I photo'd it but wasn't able to get it back in the bank SDB before the coronavirus struck. Thus I can get a weight also.

 

Handsome coins! talerman/ Gallienus

 

AV 1/12 Dukat 1711 Breslau Mint 3 known
Holy Roman Emperor Josef I 1705-11
Upon the death of HRE Leopold I in 1705/ Josef was elected to succeed him. He continued the War of the Spanish Succession vs France/ Spain. His top commander Prince Eugene of Savoy won victories for him, securing for the HRE hegemony in Italy/ Low Countries. In 1710 he issued an edict to exterminate the Romani Gypsies in the HRE. By 1711, most where hunted down and hanged. In 1711 he was inflicted with small pox, and promised his wife that if God would spare his life, he would promise to stop fooling around with women. But he died the same.

 

I think all coins reflect history. Some coins are created by history like the 1943 steel cents and siege coins. Most visually interesting are the portrait coins of rulers who made it to the top, blew it and then came crashing down like Napoleon I & III.

 

Speaking of Napoleon, here is some more about him. This 1821 St. Helena half penny was one of my most recent acquisitions as well. The following information I copied from Numista:

In 1815 the St. Helena economy was bolstered by the arrival of the exiled Napoleon. The Emperor's entourage and the guarding force of British troops suddenly doubled the island's population bringing great prosperity. In order to sustain this growth the Company sent out £50,000 in dollars in 1819. St. Helena was at the peak of its prosperity. Two years later, in 1821, wheels were set in motion for the supply of two copper coinages specifically struck for use on the island. The first issue was of an unofficial nature and originated from a local firm of merchants called Solomon, Dickson and Taylor. Instructions were sent to England for the manufacture of 70,560 halfpenny tokens. Responsibility for the second issue belonged to the Court of Directors of the Honourable East India Company based in England. They requested the Mint of Matthew Robinson Boulton, at Soho near Birmingham, to strike a copper coinage to the total value of £1,000. For this sum the Company received 702,704 halfpenny pieces.
Before either of the new copper coinages arrived in St. Helena, Napoleon died on 5th May 1821. Soon after, most of the troops, high military officers, civil servants and their families had left the island. Consequently the demand for the halfpenny pieces never reached the level originally conceived. In 1830 a large surplus stock of the East India Company copper coins in an unissued state was returned to England for melting. It would be easy to conclude from this event that the coinage was a failure. Far from it, the halfpennies remained in circulation on the island and proved an acceptable payment to all parties. These characteristics must have appeared very attractive to a Company which was still encountering difficulties in maintaining a regular supply of silver coin on St. Helena.
David Vice. "The Coinage of British West Africa & St Helena 1684-1958"

 

Although the number of participants was small, I was enjoying this thread and I am sorry to see it appears to be collapsing. Is the problem that the sun has come out in Canada and our most active and distinguished contributor, @panzerman, has gone back to work ? Surely the rest of us still have quite a few historically interesting coins.

Following up on previous examples of the bad habits of 16th century popes, here is a little coin with some interesting history (and a stag with impressive headgear on the reverse)

Italy CASTRO Pierluigi Farnese Paolo n.d.(1545-47)

Born in 1508, Pierluigi Farnese was the illegitimate son of Silvia Ruffini and Pope Paul III (Alessandro Farnese), who in 1539 made him Prince and Lord of Nepi and Castro with the mint right. In 1545 Emperor Charles V invested him with the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza and in the same year Farnese opened a mint at Castro. He was murdered in a conspiracy led by Ferrante Gonzaga in 1547 and the mint was closed.

 

Sorry, in an absent-minded moment I referred to a stag on the reverse. It is, of course, the less common unicorn. There is a snake below it. I don't know the symbolism behind all this.

 

Oh, no: the numbers are collapsing! I should program a forum thread on my CoinsandHistory website. Here, I'll post a somewhat less common portrait coin which shows one of my favorite areas -- Latin American dictators! Not to worry tho, I've plenty of these fellas.




This is an 8 soles sized coin (e.g. 8 reales size) of Manuel Rosas "Tyrant of the Argentines" who ruled there as an absolute dictator.

Rosas became "governor" of Buenos Aires (the capital & main city /province of Argentina) in 1829 following the official surrender of the city to him. After he became entrenched in power he had his generals under him executed so as not to pose a threat to his rule.

Like many dictators he started out popular at first then became increasingly paranoid and suspicious of plots. He put down a major insurrection to by The Unitarians to establish an Argentine Republic. In fact the Unitarians issued their own coin: proclaiming the Republic in 1840. When Rosas won he had the Unitarian coins destroyed. Today there are about 20 surviving Unitarian Pesos.

Rosas was forced to leave the country in 1852 and fled to England where he lived until his death. The above Rosas piece is now thought to be a silver die trial for his 8 eScudos gold coin of the same design. I think there are about 5-6 pieces of this silver coin extentent and perhaps about 10 of the gold coins. Another one of these was auctioned in the Milennia Sale (Goldberg's, 2008) and had a higher slab grade despite having less detail & unnatural surfaces. I had the fortune to view both and thought this one superior even tho it was graded "AU details".



The 1840 Unitarian or "Rebel Peso"

 

Panzerman is back to work, its about time, I was off since December of 2019

Well I am back at it since April 6th....again a productive member of society.

Here is a recent win from yesterday....
AV Solidus ND Constantinople Mint
Byzantine Empire
Justinian II 685-95 (First Reign)
He was the son of Constantine IV, in 685 he was crowned Emperor upon his fathers death. The sixteen year old started off well, defeating the Arabs in Armenia, then seizing Cyprus from them. He then secured a peace Treaty wilth the Umayyad Caliph Al-Malik. He now turned his armies on the Bulgars/ crushing them and winning back Macedonia. He then deported most of their populace to Anatolia. Then things went bad, he lost a major Battle of Sebastopolis to the Arabs, due to the defection of thousands of Bulgar troops. Angered by this, he had thousands killed in reprisal. By 695, one of his ministers, Leontius stirred up a revolt against his rule. He was deposed and had his nose cut off. He was then banished to Cherson in the Crimea.

 

1898 USS Olympia, Bronze medal commemorating the 60th anniversary of the battle of Manila Bay and the USS Olympia. Some info from Numista includes:
"Could be purchased at the Independence Seaport Museum, first produced in 1958 but continued to be produced at least until the early 2000's"

 

Julius II (1503-1513) Julius II, Bologna. O/ IVLIVS • II • PONTIFEX • MAXIMVS • Bust of pope right, with cope. R/ S • P • BONON-IA • DOCET • San Petronio enthroned; below, the arms of Cardinale Legato Giovanni de’ Medici. [Enrico] Dotti, 1934; cfr. CNI X, p. 65 n. 73;Chimienti 2009, p. 195 n. 244 Dies attributed to Francesco Francia.

This coin, rare and beautiful, is both historically important and signifies important history.

For me, it is most interesting from an art historical perspective. The dies were likely engraved by Francesco Francia, the most important Renaissance artist from Bologna, and the master of its mint. Not only is it by one of the greatest Renaissance artists to work as a die engraver, but it also get a mention in the most important (and first book) book of art history, the Lives of the Artists, by Giorgio Vasari.

Vasari writes of Francia:

“But that in which he delighted above all, and in which he was truly excellent, was the making of dies for medals, wherein he was the rarest master of his day, as may be seen in some that he made with a most lifelike head of Pope Julius II… not to mention that he made medals of Signer Giovanni Bentivogli, in which he appears alive…As long as he lived he was ever Master of the Mint in Bologna, for which he made the stamps of all the dies, both under the rule of the Bentivogli and also during the lifetime of Pope Julius”
​

Julius II, is of course, the archetypal Renaissance pope, who was not only patron to Raphael and Michelangelo, but also a warrior who fought to centralize Italian power. Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote a dialogue about the Pope trying to use military force to gain entry into heaven, Julius Excluded from Heaven. Disapproval of Julius' behaviour as pope laid the groundwork for what would become the protestant reformation. He even featured in Machiavelli's the prince, who thinks his dominating personality trait was rashness and who blithely sums up: "His early death spared him the experience of failure. Because if times had changed and circumstances demanded caution, he would have been finished" (25.9)

My coin was issued after Julius personally led the papal troops to Bologna to expel its tyrant Giovanni II Bentivoglio. Bologna would remain a papal city all the way to 1796, when it was conquered by Napolean.

I like to think of this coin as a miniature work of art, sitting alongside the Sistine Chapel, the Raphael Rooms and Michelangelo's Moses as one of the masterpieces commissioned by the great Renaissance pope.