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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;goldducat, post: 2283371, member: 37873&quot;]Howdy Guy,</p><p>let&#039;s start with the question WHY The Netherlands started minting gold ducats. It is just because after the fall of Antwerp (1585) the center of the European trade moved to Amsterdam. And the States of Holland (a kind of representatives of the Holland province) were looking for the stable and well-recognized coin for large transactions.</p><p><br /></p><p>What coins did they had in use already? A wide variety of silver coins, but their value was too low for easy use in large transactions. Speaking about large transaction I think about thousands of gold ducats. Gold coins were more handy for merchants, because they had a higher value and lower weight than silver coins. Because the Netherlands just became independent from Spain, they also wanted to mint their own coins, without Spanish rulers on them.</p><p><br /></p><p>Of course before 1586, when the first Netherlands gold ducats were minted, there was a number of other gold ducats in Low Countries (florins mostly; in contrary to ducats, their weight was different under various issuing authorities!). What&#039;s more, gold ducats from the pre-provincial mints, like Batenburg, Hedel, &#039;s-Heerensberg, etc. were mostly debased coins, with a lower fineness than said by low. It was because of the 80 Years War, what resulted with a lack of the government&#039;s supervision over all these mints. So, on October 4, 1586 with the Ordinance of Leicester the Netherlands established their own gold standard for a few centuries: 3.51gm and 0.986 fineness. This is what we know as a &quot;gold ducat&quot; standard today.</p><p><br /></p><p>Gold ducats were in use as trade coins. For domestic payments they were using other coins, mostly silver ones. Of course it was not forbidden to pay in Low Countries with gold ducats, however in practice gold ducats in 16th and 17th centuries were in use mostly for payments in the Baltic Area, in particular for payment in Danzig (Gdańsk) in Poland. Later on they were exported in large numbers to Batavia (Indonesia today). The most of coins in Asia were melted down and used for minting their own currency or for making jewelry and gold stuff. I know about a large chair made for some Asian ruler from the Dutch gold ducats melted down.</p><p><br /></p><p>Trade with Asia started in 1602, because in previous years Dutchmen had problems with supplies of spices and other goods from India. But this new country was also looking for a new opportunities for its merchants, and for independence from the Spanish fleet (Portugese and British fleets were not able to deal with India for a large scale at this time). In almost 200 years of the VOC trade activity in India the amount of 600 million Dutch guilders was transferred to Batavia! One ducat was worth almost 6 guilders, so you just need to do the math <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie2" alt=";)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>Before you will get excited with these numbers, you have to know that in international payments a half of a million ducats a year is not so impressive. For instance, King Phillip II had an annual income of almost 3 million gold ducats. However, the consumption of money due to the activities of war was very large. For instance, Charles V spent 2.5 millions ducats in the battle for Metz in 1552-1553 and failed to take the city! Wanna more examples?</p><p><br /></p><p>Sometimes it was a smaller number, like in the New Year of 1586, when the British captured Santo Domingo. After a month long occupation they sailed from the city with a prey in the amount of 25,000 ducats.</p><p><br /></p><p>International loans in the in the 16th century were expressed in hundreds of thousands ducats. For example, when The Spanish King Philip II required money for the war with the French of Naples, he asked Queen Bona Sforza (wife of the Polish King, Sigismund the Old) for a loan. Queen Bona granted a loan to the Kingdom of Spain in the amount of 430,000 gold ducats.</p><p><br /></p><p>You asked me also about the purchasing power of a ducat. Around 1650 the cost of the basic monthly cost of food for 1 person, expressed in gold ducats, was about 0.7 of a ducat. A barrel of salt cost in Low Countries one third of a ducat at this time. Teacher&#039;s salary was about 0.5-0.7 ducats monthly.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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