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1/2 Thaler - Henry
| Issuer | Mansfeld-Bornstedt, County of |
|---|---|
| Year | 1774 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 1/2 Thaler |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Latin |
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| Reverse description | An equestrian figure of a crowned knight in armour, depicted in right-facing profile astride a caparisoned horse with richly decorated saddlecloth, brandishing a long lance or standard. Beneath the horse, a prostrate winged dragon is trampled underfoot, evoking the iconography of Saint George and the Dragon. The date 1774 appears in the exergue below the horse. The circular legend in German is divided by the equestrian group, reading BEY GOTT IST RATH UND THAT. The overall composition is bold and well-struck in the tradition of German Thaler coinage. |
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| Additional information |
By 1774, the Mansfeld mining districts had been in terminal decline for over a century, their famous copper and silver seams largely exhausted after sustaining one of the Holy Roman Empire's most prolific minting traditions since the medieval period. The Bornstedt line issued coins well past the point of economic justification — partly prestige, partly the lingering legal privileges of imperial immediacy that smaller German counties clung to even as consolidation pressures mounted from larger neighbors.
Henry was among the last counts to exercise that minting right in any meaningful volume. This half thaler dates to just years before the line's coining activity effectively ceased.