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1 Ducat - George III Harz - Mining Dukat
| Issuer | Brunswick-Lüneburg-Calenberg-Hannover |
|---|---|
| Year | 1802-1804 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | 3.49 g |
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| Obverse description | Large crowned quartered shield of arms occupying the central field, bearing the royal arms of Great Britain and Hanover as borne by George III, with divisions displaying the lions of England, the fleur-de-lis of France, the harp of Ireland, and the Hanoverian charges including the white horse and the crown of Charlemagne. The shield is surmounted by a royal crown. A continuous Latin legend encircles the design along the rim. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The leaping Hanoverian horse facing left in high relief, rendered in a naturalistic style, positioned above a straight horizontal ground line with tufts of grass indicated beneath. The date 1804 appears in the exergue below the ground line, with the mintmaster's initials G.F.M. directly beneath. The Latin legend EX AURO HERCINIAE (from the gold of the Harz) arcs around the upper portion of the field, referencing the mining origin of the gold used to strike this ducat. |
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| Additional information |
The Harz mining ducats of Brunswick-Lüneburg were struck directly from gold sourced in the Harz Mountains, a practice with roots in the sixteenth century that gave these issues a distinct institutional identity separate from general coinage. The region's mines, administered under the Oberbergamt at Clausthal, supplied the metal and effectively sponsored the coins — hence the mining attribution. By 1802, output from the Harz workings had been declining for decades, and these late George III issues were produced in comparatively small numbers against that contracting backdrop.
The Fr#618 reference places this squarely within a recognized ducat type, but the Müseler citation is the more useful one for serious collectors — Müseler's exhaustive treatment of German mining coinage remains the definitive work for distinguishing the subtle die variations within this short-lived series.