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⅔ Thaler - Frederick William I
| Issuer | Prussia, Kingdom of |
|---|---|
| Year | 1720 |
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| Value | ⅔ Thaler |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Armored bust of Frederick William I facing right, wearing a cuirass with decorative pauldron and a sash across the chest, his hair rendered in loose curls falling to the neck. The effigy is portrayed in a bold, high-relief style characteristic of early 18th-century German coinage. A circular Latin legend runs along the toothed border, reading FRID • WILH • D • G • REX • BORVSS • EL • BRAND •, identifying the king as King of Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg by the grace of God. |
|---|---|
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| Obverse lettering | FRID • WILH • D • G • REX • BORVSS • EL • BRAND • |
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| Additional information |
The two-thirds thaler denomination was a North German accounting convenience rooted in the Hamburg banco system, where 1½ Reichsthaler equaled 2 thaler in the local currency — making the two-thirds piece a practical settlement coin for Baltic and Hanseatic trade rather than a product of any Hohenzollern monetary ambition. Frederick William I, the "Soldier King," was characteristically indifferent to coinage aesthetics; his reign saw minting contracted out heavily to lease arrangements, and quality control suffered accordingly.
The 1720 date places this issue squarely in the shadow of the South Sea Bubble collapse, which tightened silver flows across northern Europe and made even routine thaler-fraction production inconsistent across mints.