Just got a new toy - a digital microscope/camera - so I decided to try it on some really small and apparently meaningless coin: Janos Hunyadi "The White Knight" (as Governor of Hungary, 1446-1453) , AE14mm 0.79g billon denar (F+) AV: TEMPOR · IO · GVBER ·, Patriarchal cross, B - */n (privy mark) in fields. REV: + M · REGnI · VnGARIE ·, Shield with Arpadian stripes. REF: Huszar 618, Pohl 175-1, Unger 485a var. obv. legend, Rethy II 156, The type was struck in 1446 (per Pohl, Huszar & Unger). This privy mark was struck in Buda (now Budapest) under a collective mark (per Pohl). Huszar/Pohl rarity rating 6. If Janos Hunyadi sounds familiar is perhaps because he was a major figure of middle/eastern Europe in the Balkan crusades against the Ottoman Empire in the 15th Cent. and his system of vassality and alliances replaced Sigismund (Zsigmond) de Louxembourg's after his death in 1437. At his death in August 1456, after the great victory against Mehmet II at Belgrade, Pope Callixtus III lamented his passing with the words "The light of the world passed..." His son, Matthias "Corvinus" Hunyadi would be crowned as King of Hungary by the Diet in January 1458, solely on the strength of his father's reputation and would go down in history as Hungary's greatest king.
This image is better than I would ever expect from a camera of that style. Please, post more little coins shot with it.
It's the size of a regular late roman AE4 but very thin. At the time when it was minted there was political turmoil in the Kingdom of Hungary which doubled down into billon coinage debasement and hyperinflation. Janos Hunyadi patched things up as well as possible considering he was a warrior first and foremost, preoccupied more with army logistics than the economy of the realm. With him the dangerous political strife and the Interregnum ended and his son turned the Kingdom of Hungary into an European super-power and the first realm outside Italy to embrace the Renaissance.
