Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
1 Goldgulden - Gerlach of Nassau
| Issuer | Archbishopric of Mainz |
|---|---|
| Year | 1353-1354 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Denier |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | A large fleur-de-lis occupies the central field, rendered in the Florentine style characteristic of 14th-century Rhenish goldgulden coinage. The lily is depicted with three prominent lobes rising from a narrow base, its stems and petals finely detailed in hammered relief. The surrounding legend, in Gothic Latin characters, reads GERLACVS ARCHIEP, identifying the issuing archbishop. The inscription is separated from the central device by a beaded inner border running along the coin's circumference. The overall design closely follows the Florentine florin prototype that served as the model for German ecclesiastical gold coinage of this period. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | GERLACVS ARCHIEP |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Gerlach of Nassau held the archbishopric of Mainz from 1346 until his death in 1371, but his goldgulden issues of 1353–54 fall squarely within the political turbulence following the Black Death, which had devastated the Rhine cities just years before. The archbishops of Mainz were among the seven imperial electors, and gold coinage of this type was as much an instrument of electoral politics as it was commerce — Mainz, Trier, and Cologne coordinated their goldgulden specifications through mutual treaties to maintain interoperability across the middle Rhine trade network.
Felke's sequencing places this among the earlier Mainz goldgulden types, predating the Quaternionen-era reforms that would standardize Rhenish output later in the century.