2 Ducat

Hamburg's double-ducat issues of this period were struck under the authority of the city's independent mint at a moment when the city's trading networks stretched from the Baltic to the Atlantic. The Free City jealously guarded its minting rights against repeated pressure from surrounding German states, and the high fineness of these pieces — essentially pure gold by the standards of the day — was a deliberate commercial statement aimed at international merchants who needed to trust the metal they handled.

Gaedechens 46c distinguishes this variety within a closely related sequence; collectors working the Hamburg gold series without Gaedechens find attribution genuinely difficult.