elverno

1804 1 Mariengroschen, Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel.

18mm

This is a five year type with 1804 the toughest to acquire.

What is the Holy Grail series or set to have in the land of the German States?

Can you tell that you've stumped me? I never thought of it before. The number of places, mints, years is so large the I've just randomly picked things up over the years. So, you started a new project; I'm putting together a page with as many of the coin producing states as I can find from the period 1789-1815 and will build new linked pages to those that I've collected at least one example from. The first major re-organization of my site in years frankly.

I think it's finally hitting me why I see so many designs from the same era.... Germany wasn't Germany yet, necessitating for a zoo's worth of designs across the kingdoms and principalities.

Yeah, "Germany" as such had literally hundreds of independent rulers, almost all of whom felt it necessary to issue a coin or two. Italy was much the same but not nearly as many places to collect as the German States. Larger places like Saxony issued tons of different denominations over centuries and others perhaps a single coin issue in a generation. Makes it fun!

1807 III Pfennige, Saxony.

25mm

1807 1 Kreuzer, Baden.

23.5mm

Very nice!

1789 Paolo, Tuscany.

24mm

My first piece from Tuscany. I think it has the perfect amount of wear, not enough to make me pass on it and enough to allow me to afford it.

1791 Louis XVI, France.

24mm

Hennin 245 var.

I only bought this because I found one of these on eBay with a BIN price of $399.99. The woman who was selling it stole my images, description and probably would have stolen my underwear if it were possible.

When I called her on it she told me I was a liar and needed to get a life. Her rationale? The text was primarily in French and I didn't speak French according to my eBay profile.

Since we couldn't come to an agreement on this I put a personal, rather offensive message, on the web page and invited her to revisit it. She never did apologize but did ask if I wanted to buy the jeton (that would be my 4th) for the BIN price of $400 and $12 shipping. I explained that if I couldn't find another example for less than $10 including shipping then I wasn't seriously trying.

So for your edification and hers, $8 total.

Very nice indeed

"Normal" is sort of an odd rarity, after all if there were only 500 struck what's normal about that? With the survival rate something 200 years old is actually rare by most peoples' standards.

BTW, in all my years of collecting I've not managed to acquire an 808 much less something as spectacular as this example.

That's the best example I've ever seen. Nice!

Part of being extremely cheap is avoiding paying extra for so called pristine coins. (I admit that I do have one MS70 rated coin in my collection )

Amen to that. I don't collect US coins actively so I admit I have a prejudice about slabs in general. But that would probably change if I did collect US...

I love a near perfect coin as much as the next person, but I'm not tied to it since virtually everything I get is 200+ years.

Part of being cheap is that you have no problem giving coins with a little extra lovin' a good home.

1813 ½ Kreuzer, Württemberg.

13mm

A tiny billon coin (about 15% silver). For me this has been a tough piece to find though it's not like I was actively asking dealers about it.

I've seen the phenomenon of metal being pulled from one side to fill in the design on the other. It seems to have happened a lot with relatively high relief designs and thin planchets.

Very neat coins. I especially like the Genoans that you've pictured.

I love them too. The second was a gift from an Italian friend (NP). It was his duplicate, which tells you a lot about his collection!

1815 1 Dute, Netherlands East Indies.

21.5mm

Sort of a strange example. All the wear, if it is wear, has left the raised elements and lettering rounded instead of flattened.

Great, now you guys are going to make me have to dig out me banknote with the Royal Progress arriving to Scottyland an' image it to share.

Ok.

Beauty constantius!

1822 King George IV Visits Scotland, Great Britain.

28mm

BHM - 1192 - R

While this medal is rare it also fits into that category of "Who cares?". That said it was obviously a big deal that the newly crowned King paid a visit. No less than 20 medals, many with multiple sizes and metals, are listed in British Historical Medals.

There are several boxes of coins and medals scattered around my rather messy office that have never been photographed or put online at all. This was one of those that got tossed (not literally!) into one of those boxes to handle at some point. I remember being annoyed that BHM kept referring back to previous medals in its descrption and it therefore got the toss.

1814 2 Soldi, Genoan Republic.

18mm

I would normally passed on this coin except that it has the PRÆSIDIUM spelling in the reverse legend rather than the more commonly seen (at least by me) PRESIDIUM. See below:

1814 2 Soldi, Genoan Republic.

18mm

That said, the only other example on Omnicoin that was not mine was the PRÆSIDIUM variant, though in even worse condition.

Looks a lot like me these days!

1794 4 Heller, Hesse-Cassel.

Just awful. And I've got larger pictures to really prove it!

1842 Death of Ferdinand Philippe, Duke of Orléans, France.

25mm

Strangely enough I put this and another medal on this subject on Omnicoin a few months back but never followed up and put them on my website. Of course this particular Duke isn't relevant to my normal period of collecting but I found the incidence of 10 and 12 sided medals in the early to mid-1840s an interesting side subject. Since the object of these medals were usually generals or marshals of the First Empire...