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1/2 Thaler - Francis Joseph I
| Issuer | Austrian Empire |
|---|---|
| Year | 1852-1856 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | 31 mm |
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| Obverse description | Laureate and draped bust of Emperor Francis Joseph I facing right, rendered in high relief in a classical academic style. The emperor is depicted as a young man with short hair beneath a laurel wreath, with a plain truncation at the shoulder. The circular legend reads FRANC IOS I D G AVSTRIAE IMPERATOR, separated by dot stops, running from lower left to lower right around the periphery. The mint mark A appears below the bust truncation in the lower field. The entire design is enclosed within a beaded inner border. |
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| Mintage | 1852 A - KM#2228.1 (`VIRIBVS VNITIS`) - 1853 A - KM#2228.1 (`VIRIBVS VNITIS`) - 1853 B - KM#2228.1 (`VIRIBVS VNITIS`) - 3,365 1854 A - KM#2228.1 (`VIRIBVS VNITIS`) - 1855 A - KM#2228.1 (`VIRIBVS VNITIS`) - 1856 A - KM#2228.1 (`VIRIBVS VNITIS`) - 1856 A - KM#2228.2 (`VIRIBUS-VIRIBUS`) - |
| Additional information |
The half thaler denomination had already been in slow decline before Francis Joseph I came to the throne in 1848, squeezed between the more commercially useful thaler and the smaller silver fractions. This particular issue belongs to the young emperor's first coinage reform push, which followed the political trauma of the 1848 revolutions and the Olmütz constitution — an attempt to project imperial stability through regularized, high-fineness silver at a moment when the empire's finances were anything but stable.
Austrian silver coinage of this window saw frequent die refinements at Vienna; the series was discontinued before the decade ended as the Convention standard gave way to newer monetary agreements with the German states.