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1/4 Thaler - Henry II
| Issuer | Mansfeld-Schraplau, County of |
|---|---|
| Year | 1595-1598 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | Log in to see details |
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| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | MB#89, Tornau#1006b |
| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Saint George is depicted on horseback, advancing to the left, in the act of slaying a dragon beneath the horse's hooves. The armored saint raises his weapon over the writhing dragon in a dynamic composition typical of late sixteenth-century German hammered coinage. A circular Latin legend surrounds the central device, divided by the figure of horse and rider into multiple segments. |
| Reverse script | Latin |
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| Additional information |
Mansfeld-Schraplau was one of the smallest and most financially precarious of the Mansfeld partition counties, a consequence of the catastrophic inheritance divisions that fragmented the Mansfeld comital holdings across the sixteenth century. By the 1590s, Henry II was ruling a territory barely capable of sustaining independent coinage, and the county's mining revenues — drawn from the copper-rich Harz foothills — were already in steep decline. The fiscal pressure to coin heavily from diminishing ore yields is well documented in the Mansfeld administrative records.
Tornau 1006b distinguishes this emission from closely related die pairings within the type.