Jakob Ernst von Liechtenstein served as Archbishop of Salzburg from 1745 until his death the same year — one of the shortest episcopates in the see's history. This six-ducat piece was almost certainly struck as a presentation or accession issue rather than for any circulation purpose; multiples of this weight in high-fineness gold were instruments of diplomatic gift-giving and court ceremony, not commerce.
The Zöttl reference places it among a tightly catalogued run of Salzburg gold multiples, a series notorious for surviving in very small numbers precisely because so few were struck to begin with.
Jakob Ernst von Liechtenstein served as Archbishop of Salzburg from 1745 until his death the same year — one of the shortest episcopates in the see's history. This six-ducat piece was almost certainly struck as a presentation or accession issue rather than for any circulation purpose; multiples of this weight in high-fineness gold were instruments of diplomatic gift-giving and court ceremony, not commerce.
The Zöttl reference places it among a tightly catalogued run of Salzburg gold multiples, a series notorious for surviving in very small numbers precisely because so few were struck to begin with.