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!
2 Albus - William IV
| Issuer | Hesse-Cassel |
|---|---|
| Year | 1591-1592 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 2 Albus = 4 Kreuzer (1⁄16) |
| 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) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Within a beaded inner circle, the crowned lion of Hesse passant to the left, its body rendered in the regional heraldic style with striped barry tinctures. The continuous encircling legend is interrupted at four points by small armorial shields, each bearing the arms of Hesse's constituent territories. The overall composition is characteristic of late sixteenth-century German hammered coinage, with the legend reading outward from the inner circle. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | WILHELMVS D. G. LAND GRAVIVS. HASSIÆ. |
| 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 |
William IV ruled Hesse-Cassel from 1567 until his death in 1592, earning the epithet "the Wise" partly for his patronage of astronomy — he maintained a working observatory at Kassel and corresponded with Tycho Brahe. The Albus was a regional silver denomination with deep roots in the Rhineland monetary tradition, and Hesse's continued striking of fractional silver in the early 1590s reflects the persistent demand for small-denomination coinage in a region crisscrossed by trade routes connecting Frankfurt to northern Germany.
The two-year window of this issue coincides almost exactly with the final months of William's reign before his death in August 1592.