Issued in the year of Haydn's 200th birth anniversary — he was born in Rohrau in 1732 — this coin belongs to Austria's long-running "Great Composers" gold series. Haydn spent nearly thirty years in the employ of the Esterházy family at Eszterháza, largely isolated from the wider musical world, a circumstance he later credited with forcing him into genuine originality.
The .986 fineness, fractionally shy of pure, follows the traditional Ducaten standard that Austrian mints had maintained for centuries.
Issued in the year of Haydn's 200th birth anniversary — he was born in Rohrau in 1732 — this coin belongs to Austria's long-running "Great Composers" gold series. Haydn spent nearly thirty years in the employ of the Esterházy family at Eszterháza, largely isolated from the wider musical world, a circumstance he later credited with forcing him into genuine originality.
The .986 fineness, fractionally shy of pure, follows the traditional Ducaten standard that Austrian mints had maintained for centuries.