Catalog
6 Goldgulden
| Issuer | Free Hanseatic City of Hamburg |
|---|---|
| Year | 1505 |
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| Currency | Mark (1325-1552) |
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|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse depicts the enthroned Virgin Mary, crowned and nimbed with a radiating glory of elongated rays emanating from her figure, shown facing the viewer in full length in the Gothic manner. She holds the Christ Child before her, the infant rendered with a sceptre or cross, both figures draped in flowing robes with fine linear drapery typical of early sixteenth-century North German die-cutting. A beaded inner border surrounds the composition, with the abbreviated votive legend distributed around the circumference of the coin in uncial lettering referencing the Virgin as the city's patron and hope. |
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| Reverse lettering | * SPES * NOSTR * - * VIRGO * MAR' * |
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| Additional information |
Hamburg's six-gulden piece of 1505 belongs to a short-lived tradition of large-denomination gold multiples struck by the north German Hanseatic cities for wholesale mercantile settlement — values too large for ordinary retail but essential for clearing debts between trading houses operating across the Baltic and North Sea networks. The Hanseatic cities issued such pieces sporadically rather than systematically, which explains why surviving examples appear in so few collections.
Gaedechens 698 is among the rarest documented Hamburg gold issues of the early sixteenth century.