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!
14 Stuivers, round
| Issuer | City of Leiden |
|---|---|
| Year | 1574 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Gulden (1581-1795) |
| 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 | Central field displays the Latin inscription LVG / DVNVM / BATAVO / RVM (Lugdunum Batavorum, the Latin name for Leiden) arranged in four lines across the field, flanked by small asterisks and a central pellet. The entire legend is encircled by a finely rendered laurel wreath tied at the top and bottom with small rosette ornaments, with an outer border of radiating denticles. The overall design is bold and typographic in character, characteristic of Dutch civic emergency coinage of the sixteenth century. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | × LVG. D. VNVM. • × BATAVO. RVM. × |
| 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 |
Leiden struck these coins during the Spanish siege of 1573–1574, one of the most punishing blockades of the Eighty Years' War. The city was reduced to eating rats, dogs, and boiled leather before William of Orange breached the dykes and flooded the polders in October 1574, routing the Spanish forces. Emergency coinage was a practical necessity: the city cut and stamped whatever silver it could commandeer from church plate and private holdings to pay garrison troops and maintain basic civic function.
The round format distinguishes this issue from Leiden's better-known cardboard siege pieces of the same crisis. Silver was scarcer than card stock, and fewer examples survived.