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 Goldgulden - Gotthard Kettler Wenden, pointy bottom
| Issuer | Livonian Order |
|---|---|
| Year | 1559-1561 |
| 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 | Variable alignment ↺ |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Facing bust of Gotthard Kettler, Grand Master of the Livonian Order, depicted in full regalia with a long beard and wearing a mantle over armor, holding a sword upright in his right hand. The figure is shown in a frontal, hieratic pose typical of late medieval ecclesiastical-military coinage. The surrounding circular legend in Latin reads GOTHARD · D · G · MAGIS · LIVON, identifying the issuer as Gotthard by the grace of God, Master of Livonia. The field is plain gold, with the bust occupying the central portion of the flan. The style reflects the late Gothic hammered coinage tradition of the Baltic region. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse script | Latin |
| 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 |
Gotthard Kettler served as the last Master of the Livonian Order, and these pieces were struck during the Order's death throes — the opening years of the Livonian War, which had begun with Ivan IV's invasion in 1558. The Order was collapsing militarily and diplomatically simultaneously, and Kettler was actively negotiating the secularization that would formally dissolve it in 1561, when he became the first Duke of Courland under Polish-Lithuanian suzerainty.
The "pointy bottom" designation distinguishes this die variety from shield variants catalogued separately under Neumann. Struck across a window of perhaps three years before the issuing authority ceased to exist entirely.