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1 Ducat - Louis Rudolph Gold from Harz Mountains
| Issuer | Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Principality of |
|---|---|
| Year | 1731-1732 |
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| Value | 1 Ducat (3.5) |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Draped bust of Duke Louis Rudolph facing right, with flowing curled wig rendered in high relief in the Baroque style. The portrait is bold and finely detailed, occupying the majority of the obverse field. A circular Latin legend surrounds the effigy along the coin's periphery. The mintmaster's initial S appears in the lower exergue beneath the bust truncation. |
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| Edge | Plain |
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| Additional information |
Louis Rudolph ruled Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel from 1731 until his death in March 1735, and this ducat dates to the opening years of that reign. The Harz Mountains designation is not decorative — the gold almost certainly originates from the mining operations in the Upper Harz, where the Clausthal and Zellerfeld mines had supplied the Brunswick ducal mint with raw material for over a century. Ducats struck explicitly from Harz gold were a deliberate political signal, connecting territorial mining rights to the coinage and advertising the duchy's resource wealth to trading partners.
The .986 fineness is consistent with the ducat standard that had circulated across the Holy Roman Empire since the Frankfurt Ducat Convention of the late seventeenth century.