Quarantine Diary

I didn't know anyone else was interested in these:


Germany 2 Kopecks 1916 - Military Coinage Eastern front
Iron, 24 mm, 5.88 gm


Germany 3 Kopecks 1916 - Military Coinage Eastern front
Iron, 27 mm, 8.69 gm

 

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I had a hard time matching one of the letters on the Cyrillic (Russian) side of the coin (the side with the Maltese Cross).

The Cyrillic middle letter on the coin is the old pre-Soviet letter "Yat".

The Unicode value for this letter is U+462 or HTML decimal Ѣ

The print version of the letter on the coin has two horizontal bars but some HTML fonts only show one bar.


Two HTML fonts for Cyrillic letter Yat
The Microsoft Arial font shows one bar.
The Microsoft Courier New font shows two bars.

The Numista website uses the Arial font and shows the letter with one horizontal bar.

 

@willieboyd2: Thanks for posting the other two coins of the series.
As for reading Cyrillic, it's all Greek to me!

Day 103: Austria, 7 Kreutzer, 1802 A, 0.250 billon, struck over 1795 12 Kreutzer

Apparently, Austria had huge budget gaps during the Napoleonic Wars. During the
War of the First Coalition, it used a mix of paper money issues and debasement of
the subsidiary coinage to raise funds. The 1795 12 kreutzer was only 0.250
fineness billon, and 4.68 grams, about the silver content of a 6 kreutzer formerly.
They were later restruck at a 7 kreutzer valuation in 1802.

This particular coin was made into a pin, and has two sharp metal spikes on the
obverse where the clasp had been mounted. So it could do some vicious damage
to other nearby coins if just left in a 2 x 2 with the spikes poking through the film.
The solder covers some of the obverse design. Supposedly, these were crudely and
hastily enough struck that on some examples you can see bits of the underlying
12 kreutzer pattern.

As for the spelling kreuzer vs. kreutzer, Numista is wildly inconsistent. Wikipedia
has it as "kreuzer, in English usually kreutzer". The 1795 coin spells it out as
"Kreützer", so I've gone with that for today (except for the umlaut, because I am
too lazy to type extended characters).

 

Were these all overstruck? I've got one I bought because I liked the denomination.

 

I think so. My 1800s Krause guide says so, as well as... some random Numista
commenter. The 7 Kreuzer/Kreutzer denomination goes back to at least 1751.
Back then it was 3.24 g of 0.420 silver. Looks like that series went to 1763, and
were not overstrikes. The 1802 only are overstrikes on the 1795 debased 12
kreuzer coins, and are 4.68 g of 0.250 silver, for slightly less (0.0376 vs 0.0427
ASW) silver content than the older 7 kreuzer series. I believe the overstrikes were
only made for one year (1802) and that was the end of the 7 kreuzer denomination.

Oh, and for full disclosure--I didn't know any of this about the coin when I
bought it. I only learned it when I was photographing it and doing a little
research for today's diary entry. I just bought it because I thought 7 was
a funny denomination.

 

Day 104: Venezuela, 2 Bolívares, 1926

Obverse: BOLÍVAR LIBERTADOR BARRE (engraver)
Reverse: ESTADOS UNIDOS DE VENEZUELA GRAM.10.1926.LEI 835.

Like a number of Latin American coins, it gives the weight (10 g) and fineness
(0.835) directly on the coin. Oddly, I don't think the denomination of 2 Bolívares
is given anywhere on the coin. This type was minted for quite a while, from 1879
to 1936. Mintages are higher later in the series. About 1 million for 1926.

I couldn't quite make out the words on the ribbon on the reverse. Looking around
on the internet for a clearer example turned out to be a deeper rabbit hole than I
had anticipated. The then current Coat of Arms of Venezuela has a similar design,
but the words on the ribbon are in a different order, with the dates on the top row
instead of in the middle. For comparison, here's my 1912 5 Bolívares:

The ribbon on this is a little clearer. I take it to be: "INDEPENDENCIA LIBERTAD
5 DE JULIO 1811 13 DE ABRIL 1864 DIOS Y FED." I believe July 5 is Venezuela's
national day, celebrating independence from Spain in 1811. Venezuela had a civil
war from 1859-1863. Afterward there was a Constitutional Congress for the federal
United States of Venezuela (1864-1959). The constitution was ratified on April 13,
1864, which matches the date on the 5 Bolívares coin.

The 2 Bolívares has some date in March on the right, so it's probably the same one
from the coat of arms: March 28, 1864. That appears to be the date when the
1864 constitution was drafted. I can't find any references in English, but here's one
in Spanish which confirms the two 1864 dates. Venezuela has had 27 different
constitutions(!) since independence in 1811, so I'm not sure why the 1864 one
stands out especially for commemoration. Anyway, piecing all this info together,
I believe the ribbon on the 2 Bolívares coin is almost exactly the same as on the
5, but they have two different dates celebrating the creation and ratification of the
Constitution of 1864 on 3/28/1864 and 4/13/1864.

 

Day 105: A small collection of Mexican 1/4 reales

From L to R:
1/4 real, 1836 (Centralist Republic of Mexico, 1835-1846)
1/4 real, Sonora State, 1861 (Second Federal Republic of Mexico, 1846-1863)
1/4 real, Chihuahua State, 1860 (Second Federal Republic of Mexico, 1846-1863)

The later two provincial issues are from just before the French intervention. France
took advantage of the US Civil War as a hiatus from the Monroe Doctrine. The US
was too preoccupied to seriously oppose France's attempt to set up the Second
Mexican Empire under Maximilian I. I believe the original French intervention was
a joint action with Spain to seize Veracruz in retaliation for Mexican President Benito
Juarez's suspension of interest payments on debt.

 

Day 106: Just a little 1 Kreuzer from the German State of Baden, 1848

1848 was a revolutionary year through much of Central Europe, Baden included.
Baden had a civil war from 1848-49, but the reformist faction was defeated with
Prussian assistance. Some of the leaders of the revolt were executed by firing
squad, and others fled to Switzerland for asylum. Among the fleeing rebels was a
visiting Friedrich Engels, who co-authored the Communist Manifesto with Karl Marx
in early 1848. Another leader, Friedrich Hecker, settled in the United States after
fleeing to Switzerland. He became an abolitionist and served as a colonel in the
Civil War. Hecker was part of a radical faction in the Republican Party who opposed
Lincoln's renomination in 1864.

History is full of many heroes and villains, and quite a few people with a good
measure of both. Still, as it is Independence Day weekend here, now is as good
a time as any for me to give thanks that so many people were willing to risk their
lives in the cause of the freedom which most of us enjoy today, however many
missteps along the way.

 

Day 107: Mexico, 25 Pesos, 1968 Olympics Circulating Commemorative

Seeing this coin made me wonder, what was the latest year of Mexican silver coin
which actually circulated? I knew about the 0.100 Pesos from 1957-67, but this
commemorative was a year later, and I think it circulated. Did the 0.720 silver
100 peso coins of 1977-79 circulate?


I tried to plot the silver content of Mexican coins to see the effect of inflation on
silver coinage. A caveat: Mexico was not on a silver or bimetallic standard after
1905, so the silver content only served as a floor for the value of a coin type, where
if the face value fell below that, the coin would be melted or hoarded. If multiple
types issued during a year had different implied silver content per peso, I used the
higher value. For example, the 1957-67 0.100 fine 1 peso coins had about 1.6 g of
silver per peso. But the 1955-59 0.720 5 pesos had 2.6 g of silver per peso, so I
used the 2.6 value for the years when the 0.720 5 pesos were issued.


I compiled date for all the Mexican circulating silver types I could find from the
Empire of Maximilian I onward. I can post the raw data if anyone cares. I don't
think CoinTalk allows spreadsheets as an attachment type, which is why the graph
above is a jpg. Mexico was actually pretty consistent in the silver content of its
coins across simultaneously circulating types. And in spite of my impression of
Mexico having chronic problems with inflation, the peso was actually pretty stable
except for two periods around the 1913 Revolution and World War II. Then chronic
inflation started to pick up, but mostly in the 1980s after circulating silver coinage
had already been abandoned.

Having high but unpredictable inflation tends to separate the roles of money as a
store of value and a medium of exchange. Regular money serves as the required
medium of exchange, but its value is not protected. Non-circulating silver such as
the Libertad series or the Casa de Moneda 1 oz. series protect their value, but are
inconvenient as a medium of exchange. In countries with low inflation we aren't
forced to deal with this trade-off as much.

Bonus coin: A 1980 Casa de Moneda 1 ounce silver content round. I bought it a
few years ago to practice my coin cleaning skills. You should have seen it before.

Pretty ugly, eh?

 

Day 108: UK Trade Dollar, 1911, Bombay Mint

Someone seems to have deliberately put some deep scratches next to the face of
Britannia on the obverse, next to what appears to be a countermark.


Bonus image: An 1878 S US Trade Dollar

 

Day 109: Busy day. One of my daughter's Guinea pigs died this morning. We had
a mated pair, but the male died earlier. We gave away 2 of the pups and now we
only have the one remaining female pup.

The mom + dad


With 3 newborn pups


Anyway, for today: A 5 lirot silver coin commemorating 10 years of independence
for the modern State of Israel. I don't believe modern Israel issued any circulating
silver coinage, though it issued many commemoratives. Mintage about 100K. I
liked the stylized menorah on this one.

 

Day 110: Hungary, 1617, Denar, II. Mátyás
Ob: MAT·D·G·RO·I·S·AV·GE·HV·B·R· K B
Rev: PATRO·HVNGA·1617·
Some of the text is hard to read off the edge of the coin, so I used Numista for the
legends. Fortunately, the date at least is pretty clear. The coin is a bit oblong, so
you can see the two sides are at very different orientations from each other. From
the 1600s and earlier, I often see coins where no serious attempt was made to line
up the orientation of the two sides.


For comparison, here were my two other early Hungarian coins:

Hungary Denár - II. Ulászló 1498-1503 K-h


Vladislaus II Obulus Hungary 1490-1516

 

Day 111: Bremen, 1865, Thaler, holed

Most thalers are outside my impulse buy price range, but this one had a hole
bringing it down to not so much over silver. Numista has it as a "non-circulating
coin" issued to commemorate a German shooting festival. Thus the crossed rifles
on the back, I guess. Oddly, the hole is placed such as to turn the iron cross into an
inadvertent ankh shape!

 

Day 112: A little French silver jeton celebrating the coronation of Louis XV at
Reims Cathedral on Oct. 25, 1722. I don't know if that's when these tokens were
actually distributed or if these were struck later.

Ob: LUD.XV.REX CHRISTIANISSIMUS.
Rev: REX COELESTI OLEO UNCTUS REIMS.25.OCT. 1722

I've found a couple sales of similar pieces on the internet at rather inconsistent
pricing. Here's one that went for €20. I got this for US $10, so I think I did OK
so long as it's authentic.

 

Day 113: Papal States, 1 Lira, Pius IX Year XIII, 1869 R

Ob: PIVS.IX.PON. M.A.X XIII
Rev: STATO ★ PONTIFICO 1 LIRA 1869 R

 

Day 114: Lombardy, 1/2 Lira, 1822, King Franz I

Sorry it's hard to make out any details. Every speck of dust on the plastic shows
up if I leave these in a 2 x 2. Here's a clearer example. I believe the V mint mark
indicates it was minted in Venice. The other mints for this series are M for Milan
and A for Vienna.

Ob: FRANCISCVS I·D·G·AVSTRIAE IMPERATOR· V
Rev: LOMB·ET VEN·REX·A·A·1822 1/2 LIRA


This is the same Francis who was Holy Roman Emperor Francis II and later Emperor
of Austria Francis I. His other titles included King of Hungary-Croatia, King of
Bohemia, and King of Lombardy-Venetia. Here's an earlier coin of his I had posted:

Austria, 20 Kreuzer, Emperor Franz I, 1807

 

Day 114: Bavaria, 10 Kreuzer, 1768, Maximilian III Joseph

Ob: D.G.MAX.IOS.U B & P. S.D.C.P.R.S.R.I.A.& ELL.
"Dei Gratia Maximilianus Iosephus Utriusque Bavariae et Palatinus Superioris Dux, Comes Palatinus Rheni, Sacri Romani Imperii, Archdapifer et Elector Landgrafius Leuchtenbergii" (translation from Numista)
Rev: IN DEO CONSILIUM 1768 10 [kreuzer]
"In God's Plan"

The portrait is very worn, so I had to remove it from the holder to get any detail at
all. Here's the "before" picture:

Fortunately the lettering at least is all readable. Maximilian Joesph certainly had a lot of titles! He died shortly after riding past a clock tower, which broke and rang
77 times. He figured it was a portent of his impending death. A few days later,
he contracted a virulent strain of smallpox and died.

 

Day 115: Two coins from the former Free City of Danzig
L: Danzig, 10 Pfennige, 1923
R: Danzig, 5 Pfennig, 1932
I don't know enough German to know why there's an extra "e" at the end of
Pfennige on the 10 but not the 5.

Danzig was semi-independent from 1920 until the German/Soviet invasion of Poland
in 1939. World War I (The Great War at the time) had a strange resolution on the
Eastern Front, as it was essentially a war with no winning power. Russia dropped
out in 1917-18 with the Soviet Revolution, giving large territorial concessions to the
Central Powers. The war ended for the rest of the powers with an armistice in 1918,
with the Central Powers on the losing side, though it was not officially declared as
such. Neither Germany, Russia or the dissolving Austria-Hungary were in a strong
position to make territorial claims. So many new nations and formerly existing
nations came to be in Central and Eastern Europe, including the Free City of
Danzig. This probably led to instability. Smaller nations usually require the backing
of a great power to maintain their independence, such as the UK having a foreign
policy evolving over centuries protecting the independence of the Low Countries
from domination by Germany, France or Spain. Most of the newly independent
states after World War I had no such protector, and the Western powers were
reluctant to go to war for their sake to protect them from a resurgent Germany
and Soviet Russia.

 

Day 116: Straits Settlements (Singapore/Malaysia), 1 Cent, 1845, East India Co.

 

Day 117: Brazil, 960 Réis, 1819 R, João VI

Pity about the hole. But if it didn't have the hole, I probably wouldn't have bought
it. Intact, I estimate it as about an $80 coin. With the hole, I think it was $19,
which was not much of a premium over melt value at the time. So I don't mind
collecting damaged coins if it's a type I don't already have.