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 Thaler - Louis I
| Issuer | Hesse-Darmstadt |
|---|---|
| Year | 1809 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| 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) | KM#277, Dav GT III#698 |
| Obverse description | Bare-headed draped bust of Grand Duke Ludwig I facing right, rendered in a neoclassical style with finely engraved curling hair. The engraver's initial 'L' appears below the truncation. The surrounding legend reads LUDWIG GROSHERZOG VON HESSEN, with a period stop after HESSEN. The field is smooth and unadorned, placing full emphasis on the portrait effigy. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | LUDWIG GROSHERZOG VON HESSEN. L |
| 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 |
Louis I assumed the title of Grand Duke in 1806 when Napoleon reorganized the German states through the Confederation of the Rhine, elevating Hesse-Darmstadt from a landgraviate and granting Louis territorial gains in exchange for political loyalty and military cooperation. This thaler was struck in the immediate aftermath of that transformation, when the new grand ducal coinage was still establishing its conventions.
The .833 fineness reflects a deliberate reduction from the traditional Convention Thaler standard of .833⅓ — a marginal but meaningful debasement that mirrored fiscal pressures felt across Napoleonic client states funding continental warfare.