Dukat gdański - Sigismund I the Old Gdańsk mint

Gdańsk held the right to mint gold ducats under a royal privilege granted by Sigismund I, making it one of very few Polish municipal mints authorized to strike in gold during the sixteenth century. The city's position as the dominant Baltic grain entrepôt meant these coins circulated far beyond Polish-Lithuanian territory — Dutch and Flemish merchants accepted them readily, and surviving examples have surfaced in Swedish and Prussian hoards well into the seventeenth century.

The Friedberg 1 designation places this among the earliest and most foundational issues in Polish gold coinage cataloguing. Kopicki's range of five reference numbers across this type reflects genuine die variation accumulated over fifteen years of intermittent production.