Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
1/2 Thaler - August Glockenhalbtaler
| Issuer | Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Principality of |
|---|---|
| Year | 1643 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Thaler (1499-1814) |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Latin |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Central device depicting a large church bell without a clapper, suspended from a yoke by two serpentine ropes or straps, rendered in fine relief. The bell serves as the personal impresa of Duke August, alluding to his motto of deliberate and considered action. A beaded inner border encloses the design, with the German and Latin motto legend arranged around the circumference, interspersed with small floral ornaments. The date 1643 appears in the upper portion of the legend. |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
The "Glockenthaler" issues of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel were struck from silver recovered from bell metal — specifically, church bells melted down to finance the grinding costs of the Thirty Years' War. By 1643, the conflict was in its final exhausted years, and the duchy had been repeatedly occupied, plundered, and taxed into near-ruin. Coining bell metal was not sentiment; it was fiscal desperation dressed in piety.
Welter 826 is the specific half-thaler denomination within this emergency series. The bell provenance was considered significant enough to advertise explicitly in the coin's own inscription — an unusual transparency for wartime monetary improvisation.