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1 Thaler
| Issuer | Magdeburg, City of |
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| Year | 1638 |
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| Shape | Round |
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| Obverse description | Central quartered municipal arms of Magdeburg, elaborately mantled and surmounted by a helmeted crest displaying the city's maiden figure, all within a wreath of baroque scrollwork and acanthus flourishes. A circular Latin legend runs along the inner border, with the date ANNO MDCXXXVIII rendered in large Roman numerals in the left field. The composition is executed in a richly detailed baroque style characteristic of mid-seventeenth-century German civic coinage. |
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| Obverse lettering | MAGDEBVRGI RESTAVRATVM ANNO MDCXXXVIII |
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| Additional information |
Magdeburg was razed and burned in May 1631 by Imperial and League forces under Tilly — one of the worst atrocities of the Thirty Years' War, killing upwards of 20,000 civilians. The city that struck this thaler seven years later was a ghost of its former self, rebuilding under Swedish protection after the massacre had wiped out roughly 85% of its population.
That a civic coinage existed at all in 1638 reflects the determination of the reconstituted municipal authority to reassert urban identity. Surviving examples from this period of Magdeburg's output are scarce precisely because the city's productive capacity had been so violently interrupted.