1 Ducat - Carl XI 4th portrait, shield with flat top

Reval — modern Tallinn — occupied an awkward position in 1673: a formerly Hanseatic city now firmly under Swedish Crown control following the Peace of Oliva in 1660, yet still jealously guarding its traditional municipal minting privileges. The city's right to strike gold ducats was a holdover from its free-city days, and Swedish administrators periodically contested it. That this piece exists at all reflects how tenaciously Reval's magistracy defended those privileges against Stockholm's centralizing instincts.

The Ahlström and Frösell gaps in the reference numbers suggest this specific die marriage — the fourth portrait paired with the flat-topped shield reverse — was either unrecorded at the time of cataloging or has surfaced since. Reval's gold output in this period was small and inconsistent, making any variant potentially significant.