Wow, I thought these were worth in the $4 - 5K range. Shortly before I got married in 1998 I was very interested in early Thalers. I found one at Spink's London. They were asking L. 2000 for it which was $3,000 US at the time. I probably tried to negotiate first but ending up buying it. I then sent it to Karl Stephens, a German thaler expert for evaluation. He liked the coin and saw no evidence of problems. I like the "easy to read" early date, particularly for showing to non-collectors. I've shown the 1486 piece many times, including at a kindergarden class at my son's preschool where they were having a history lesson. 1485 was the technical end of the middle ages and also I think in 1486 Colombus approached the monarchs of Portugal or Spain for funding for his proposed expedition. Also at our wedding my wife wanted a display of some of my early coins. I had theses displayed in a plexiglass case & specifically for the wedding wanted a Polish thaler (as I'm part Polish). From a Karl again I bought the below 1634, graded AU [then the highest grade for thalers], for $800. Here you almost have to know where to look for the date as it's hard to find. This also started a short term interest in Polish thalers in which I ended up with 4 or 5 of them [depending on whether you classify a Pomeranian thaler as Polish or German]. Foreign coins were dirt cheap before around 2005.
No, it's 1491, just an unusual shape on the 9. There are no dated goldguldens before the 1430s and they all use Roman numerals. I'm ashamed of the look of the medievalcoinage.com site's listings at the moment. Some day, and that day may never come, I'd like to get it in proper database form, updated with Levinson's catalog numbers and do some better formatting, etc. but work and life makes that a chore right now. Anyone interested in the early dates really should pick up a copy of his book if they can. There are so many more illustrated and described that are not listed on my site and that rarely or never go up for sale.
Are you the Medievalcoinage.com website owner? I just browsed thru the site and really liked it and sent an email to the contact. Quite interesting and I guess that unfortunately a lot of these early things have increased in price & gotten expenensive? While it's nice to see that one's coins are up, it's discouraging as I guess I'll not be able to pick up a cheap 1484 half guildiner any more? You mention a lot of things like the 1375 Aachen Turnose-groschen. How big & rare are these? What exactly is a Turnose-groschen? Don't worry about your site's look, it seems to work quite well. With coinsandhistory.com, I'm aware that there are always a lot of things that need fixing.
Gallienus, Sean Breazeal is the owner of the web site. His site works really well and is a valuable tool for research. The 1486 guildiner that sold was an exceptional piece. The 1484 half-guildiner should be available for 5K or less. The 1374 and 1375 Turnose-groschen are both very rare, 11-20 of each known per Robert Levinson. They are about the size of a U.S. half dollar but about 1/5 the thickness. The name Turnose-groschen refers to a group of coins issued by several countries and towns during this time. I have both the 1374 and 1375 pieces from Aachen.
Guilty as charged, and your mail was what prompted the reply here . Thanks for the comments, and regarding the weights seeming light, they can vary a lot from coin to coin but 1.65g for a 25 mm continental hammered coin is not unusually so. A bracteate of that diameter is often under 1 gram. The 1484 half-guldiners are a bit rarer than their 1486 full counterparts and they don't seem to be as heavily traded, but the prices can be much, much lower. The 1486s are famous just for being the first thalers. I think the cheapest I've ever seen a 1484 go for was around $800, but it was badly worn. You can still get lucky and snag one for under $2k, though. Hess-Divo sold one last October that only reached around €1,000. The more expensive ones are usually a rare variant or really good, clear strikes. Re: the turnose-groschens, the name comes from their imitation of the form of the French gros tournois of Tours with the short cross and dual ringed legend on the reverse. They can be listed as just groschens, turnosgroschens, etc. Someone wrote a really nice page about them here: http://currencies.wikia.com/wiki/Aachen_1_groschen_coin
From the link I posted above..."The 1234 Roskilde Denier (pfennig, penning, etc) holds the title of earliest coin with an Anno Domini date. Its story is quite remarkable and will be added soon. So far seven have been found, and the coin was known as an oddity even back in the early 1800s when Joseph Mader first mentioned it in his large work on medieval coinage. It is also curious for having no mention of its place of origin, the mintmaster, or ruler on the coin itself."
A few years ago the Danish auction house, Bruun Rasmussen had a Roskilde denier for bid.It did not meet the reserve 30,000 Euros. I hope to add this piece to my collection one day, but not without Robert Levinson's guaranty.
