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3 Thaler
| Issuer | Cologne, City of |
|---|---|
| Year | 1620-1630 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
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| Composition | Silver |
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| Diameter | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | The Three Holy Kings (Magi) — Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar — depicted as crowned, robed figures standing facing, the central king slightly taller and flanked symmetrically by the other two. Below the three figures is the crowned shield of Cologne bearing three crowns above a wavy base (the city arms). A circular legend in Gothic lettering surrounds the entire design within a beaded border, referencing the patron saints of Cologne Cathedral. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | A large sailing vessel (ship of Cologne) depicted in high relief, shown broadside with multiple masts, furled sails, and rigging, with a crew of numerous figures visible aboard the deck. The ship rides stylized waves in the lower field. A circular Gothic legend surrounds the design within a beaded border, referencing the city of Cologne. |
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| Additional information |
Cologne jealously guarded its status as a Free Imperial City throughout the Thirty Years' War, and this heavy multiple thaler belongs squarely to that anxious period of municipal self-assertion. The city's mint was active precisely because Cologne needed hard money to pay garrison troops and manage the chaotic currency debasement — the Kipper und Wipper crisis — that was gutting the smaller German states around it. Cologne, better capitalized and more politically stable than most of its neighbors, was in a position to strike honest, heavy silver when others could not.
The Noss reference places this as a relatively scarce civic emission. At over 87 grams, it required multiple thaler-weight planchets and careful adjustment at the scales.