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5 Groats Gerona, lozenge

Issuer Catalonia, Principality of
Year 1641
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Shape Round (irregular)
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Obverse description Central crowned shield bearing four vertical pales (the arms of Aragon-Catalonia), with the numeral value flanking the shield on either side within the field. A circular Latin legend runs around the periphery, confined between two concentric beaded circles, lending a formal decorative border to the composition typical of hammered Catalan coinage of the period.
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Mintage 1641
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This issue belongs to the explosive opening year of the Corpus de Sang — the Reapers' War — when Catalonia severed its allegiance to Philip IV of Spain and placed itself under French protection. The Generalitat needed coinage that projected legitimate authority fast, and Gerona's mint was among those pressed into emergency production. The lozenge privy mark distinguishes the Gerona output from simultaneous strikes at Barcelona and other activated mints, all scrambling to supply a principality suddenly functioning as a de facto independent state.

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