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Pfennig - Dietrich
| Issuer | County of Formbach (Austrian States) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1130-1140 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
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| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Variable alignment ↺ |
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| Obverse description | Architecturally styled design featuring a schematic representation of a church or tower facade rendered in a flat, stylized Romanesque manner typical of early medieval Austrian bracteate-influenced pfennigs. The central motif displays a crenellated or turreted structure with vertical divisions, flanked by subsidiary ornamental elements in the field. The flan is irregular and slightly broken, consistent with hand-hammered production of the period. Legend elements, if present, are largely illegible due to the crude striking and worn condition of the specimen. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse exhibits a similarly stylized architectural or ecclesiastical motif, showing a central tower or church facade with prominent vertical and horizontal structural lines, surrounded by a beaded or dotted inner border. Subsidiary annulets and pellets are distributed within the field. The strike is characteristically uneven with areas of flat relief, and the flan shows cracking and fragmentation along the edges, consistent with the hammered technique and thin silver fabric of 12th-century Austrian pfennigs. Any marginal legend is largely obliterated. |
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| Additional information |
The counts of Formbach, seated near the Inn River in Bavaria, were a prominent dynasty whose line collapsed abruptly when Count Ekbert II died without male heirs around 1158, his territories absorbed by the Habsburgs' predecessors and the bishopric of Passau. Coins attributable to this county survive in very small numbers, and the attribution to Dietrich — likely Dietrich I — rests primarily on typological comparison within the Corpus Nummorum Austriacorum framework rather than documentary proof.
The broad, thin fabric at this diameter relative to the weight is characteristic of south German bracteate-transitional minting practice of the period.