21/2 Ducats - Aureus Magnus Albrecht Dürer

This piece belongs to the "Aureus Magnus" series issued by the German Federal Republic beginning in the early 1970s — medallic gold strikes produced in limited quantities as collector issues rather than circulating coinage. The Dürer subject reflects the broader postwar West German cultural project of reclaiming Renaissance humanism as a national identity distinct from the preceding regime's aesthetics.

Albrecht Dürer died in Nuremberg in 1528, having spent considerable effort calculating the mathematical proportions of the human figure — work that fed directly into his reputation as the northern Renaissance's most rigorous theorist. The 1971 release coincided roughly with no particular Dürer anniversary, which tells you most of what you need to know about the series' commemorative logic.