Catalog
Half Esterlin - Jean the Blind
| Issuer | County of Luxembourg |
|---|---|
| Year | 1309-1346 |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Facing crowned royal effigy depicted in frontal view, enclosed within two concentric pearled circles. The crowned head is rendered in the stylized Gothic manner typical of early 14th-century hammered coinage. A circular Latin legend in uncial lettering surrounds the inner pearled border. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | + EDWARDENSIS REX |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Jean the Blind ruled Luxembourg for nearly four decades while spending almost none of that time in the county itself — he was perpetually campaigning across Europe, from Lombardy to Lithuania, accumulating wounds and debts in roughly equal measure. This half esterlin belongs to a fractional coinage necessitated partly by the financial strain of those campaigns, struck to facilitate small transactions in a territory its count rarely visited. Jean died at Crécy in 1346, charging blind into the English lines at the age of fifty, his reins reportedly tied to those of his knights.