Product Code Database
(bottom center): Clockwise from top left: Saxe-Altenburg 1616 (reverse), Saxony 1592, Austria 1701 (obverse), Saxony 1592 (obverse), Center: double thaler, Austria 1635 (obverse). ]] A thaler, or taler ( ; , previously spelled Thaler), is one of the large minted in the states and territories of the Holy Roman Empire and the Habsburg monarchy during the Early Modern period. A thaler size silver coin has a diameter of about and a weight of about 25 to 30 grams (roughly 1 ounce). The word is shortened from Joachimsthaler, the original thaler coin minted in Joachimsthal, Bohemia, from 1520.
While the first standard coin of the Holy Roman Empire was the Guldengroschen of 1524, its longest-lived coin was the Reichsthaler, which contained Cologne Mark of fine silver (or 25.984 g), and which was issued in various versions from 1566 to 1875. From the 17th century a lesser-valued North German thaler currency unit emerged, which by the 19th century became par with the Vereinsthaler.
The thaler silver coin type continued to be minted until the 20th century in the form of the Mexican peso until 1914, the five Swiss franc coin until 1928, the US silver dollar until 1935, and the Austrian Maria Theresa thaler. These days thaler-sized silver coins are not in active circulation anymore, but are minted by various government mints as bullion or numismatic items for collectors. The current derivative of the name, dollar (Spanish dollar and now mostly English), also survives as the name of several modern currencies.
The name taler, thaler was soon used in compounds denoting various types of silver coins of thaler size, thus Reichstaler (1566), Silbertaler, Albertustaler (1612), Laubthaler (1726), Kronenthaler (1755), Ortsthaler, Schützentaler, Bankthaler, Speciethaler, etc.
Units used in the Netherlands include the daalder, the rijksdaalder and the leeuwendaalder. From 1754, many German states used the Conventionsthaler as well as a lower-valued North German thaler, or Reichsthaler, worth Conventionsthaler. From 1840 the various North German thalers converged to the value of the Prussian thaler and afterwards the Vereinsthaler.
The corresponding English silver coin of the period was the crown. The Low German word was adopted in English as daler by 1550, modified to dollar by about 1600.Christian Ludwig, Teutsch-Englisches Lexicon (1789), c.448 gives dollar, doller as the English translation of Thaler. English thaler was introduced in the first half of the 19th century to refer to the coins of the German states, as the word dollar was increasingly understood to refer to the United States dollar.
Even these coins were increasingly debased due to the Great Bullion Famine of the 15th century, which occurred for several reasons, including continued warfare and the centuries-long loss of silver and gold in indirect one-sided trades importing , porcelain, silk and other fine cloths and exotic goods from India, Indonesia and the Far East. This continual debasement had reached a point that silver content in Groschen-type coins had dropped, in some cases, to less than five percent, making the coins of much less individual value than they had in the beginning.
This trend was inverted with the discovery of new and substantial silver deposits in Europe beginning in about the 1470s. Italy began the first tentative steps toward a large silver coinage with the introduction in 1472 of the Venetian lira tron, in excess of six grams, a substantial increase over the four-gram gros tournois of France. However, it was only in 1484 that Archduke Sigismund of German Tyrol issued the first truly revolutionary silver coin, the half Guldengroschen, of roughly 15 g. This was a very rare coin, almost a trial piece, but it did circulate so successfully that demand could not be met.
Finally, with the silver deposits—being mined at Schwaz—to work with and his mint at Hall, Sigismund issued, in 1486, large numbers of the first true thaler-sized coin, the Guldengroschen ("gold-groat", being of silver but equal in value to a Goldgulden). It was an instant and unqualified success. Soon it was being copied widely by many states who had the necessary silver. The engravers, no less affected by the Renaissance than were other artists, began creating intricate and elaborate designs featuring the heraldic arms and standards of the minting state as well as brutally realistic, sometimes unflattering, depictions of the ruler (monarch).
Similar coins began to be minted in neighbouring valleys rich in silver deposits, each named after the particular thal, or valley, from which the silver was extracted. There were soon so many of them that these silver coins began to be known more widely as 'thaler' in German and 'tolar' in Czech.
In the 17th century, some Joachimsthalers were in circulation in the Tsardom of Russia, where they were called yefimok (ефимок) – a distortion of the name Joachim.
The first large silver coin standardized by the Holy Roman Empire was the Guldengroschen in 1524. Under the new Imperial Minting Standard ( Reichsmünzfuß) it contained th a Cologne Mark of silver, or 29.232 g, and had a fineness 0.9375. However, its longest-lasting standard coin was the Reichsthaler ("imperial thaler"), defined in 1566 as containing th a Cologne Mark of fine silver, or 25.984 g. It was widely adopted and produced for the next 300 years at rates varying from 9 to 9 Reichsthalers to the Mark.
See the chronology of thaler development for the development of the Reichsthaler and related currency units from 1566 to 1875. Confusingly, there also was defined a North German thaler currency (also called Reichsthalers) of less value to the standard Reichsthaler specie coin; this thaler was worth 12 to a Mark after 1690, 13 to a Mark after 1754, and 14 to a Mark (the Prussian thaler) by the 1840s. Furthermore, in 1754 a Conventionsthaler was developed by the Austrian Empire minted at 10 to a Mark of fine silver. While it was adopted by most German states, Scandinavia and a few North German states retained the original Reichsthaler specie of 9 to a Mark as their standard coin until 1875.
In the late 16th and 17th centuries, there was a fashion of oversized thaler coins, the so-called "multiple thalers", often called Löser in Germany. The first were minted in the Duchy of Brunswick-Luneburg, and indeed the majority were struck there. Some of these coins reached colossal size, as much as sixteen normal thalers, exceeding a full pound (over 450 g) of silver and being over in diameter. The name Löser most likely was derived from a large gold coin minted in Hamburg called the portugalöser, worth 10 ducats, which were based on Portuguese 10-ducat coins. Gold medallic portugalöser (10 ducats) Eventually the term was applied to numerous similar coins worth more than a single thaler. These coins are very rare and highly sought after by collectors. As few of them were circulated in any real sense, they are often well-preserved.
The Spanish Netherlands and the independent Dutch Republic has had a history of minting large silver coins separately from the rest of the Holy Roman Empire. It issued the kruisdaalder (depicting the Cross of Burgundy) in 1567, and then the leeuwendaalder (the "lion thaler", depicting the Belgic Lion) in 1575, the latter of weight 27.68 g (427.2 grains) and 0.743 fineness. With the growing popularity of the German reichsthaler, however, the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands had to follow up with their own Dutch rijksdaalder in 1583, of weight 29.03 g (448 grains) and 0.885 fineness, and featuring an armored half bust of William the Silent. Friesland, Gelderland, Holland, Kampen, Overijssel, Utrecht, West Friesland, Zeeland, and Zwolle minted armored half bust rijksdaalders until the end of the 17th century.
The pace of depreciation of the small-denomination stuiver quickened from the 1570s, with the leeuwendaalder rising from 32 to 40 stuivers by 1619, and the rijksdaalder from 42 to 50 stuivers. The Amsterdam Wisselbank was then founded in 1608 to establish a stable bank money with the rijksdaalder of 29.03 g, 0.875 fine (or 25.4 g fine silver) fixed at 50 stuivers, or 2 Dutch guilder.
The bank's success helped the Dutch Republic become Europe's financial center in the 17th century and maintain the reichsthaler as its banking currency unit despite Germany's descent into the chaos of the Thirty Years' War. As a bullion entrepôt of the period, the Netherlands produced reichsthalers for Germany and Scandinavia, and exported leeuwendaalders to the Levant and the Ottoman Empire. The latter survives to this day in the form of the Romanian leu and Moldovan leu.
Lion daalders were in common use in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and in what is now known as the United States. The city of New Amsterdam, currently New York, was founded by the Dutch in the early 17th century. "The Lion Daalder holds an important place in American history as America’s first dollar and the root of the word from where the current currency, the US Dollar, found its name."[3]
By the 18th century, the Spanish-controlled Dutch territories eventually became the Austrian Netherlands. In 1754, it issued the Kronenthaler of 29.45 g weight and 0.873 fineness, or 25.71 g fine silver. This coin was adopted by many South German states by the early 19th century.
The term daalder continued to refer to 1 gulden in currency even after the discontinuation of the 1 gulden, or 30 stuiver, piece in the 19th century.
The rijksdaalder was also known as the silver ducat, which is still minted for collectors in the Netherlands today.
The rise of German and Spanish dollars in 16th century European trade lessened the demand for French silver francs and testoons. In 1641 King Louis XIII therefore introduced a new Louis d’Argent equal to the Spanish dollar and worth three livres tournois, weighing 27.19 g and 0.917 fine. In 1726, France issued its own thaler coin, the silver écu of six livres with about 26.7 g fine silver; it would also find currency in Southern Germany and Switzerland as the laubthaler. Finally, in 1795, the French franc was established, with the five-franc coin of 25.0 g, 90% fine silver being closest in size to the thalers used elsewhere. The French franc system would be expanded to other countries in the advent of the Latin Monetary Union of 1865.
The Reformed cities began to represent "city views" on the obverse of their thalers, as they did not have the option to represent either patron saints or ruling princes. The first city view thaler of Zürich was minted in 1651 (the so-called Vögelitaler).Künker Auktion 316, Numismatischer Verlag Künker (2019), 282.
By the 18th century, Bern and many Western Swiss cantons adopted the French écu, or laubthaler, of 26.7 g fine silver as its most widely used thaler, valued at four livres (francs) or 40 batzen of Bern. In 1798 this system was adopted by the Helvetic Confederation, with the first Swiss franc equal to écu.
Eventual transition to this first new Swiss franc stalled in the 19th century while public preference shifted to the South German Kronenthaler of 25.71 g fine silver, valued at 3.9 francs or 39 batzen. In 1850 Switzerland established the modern-day Swiss franc at par with the French franc, with 40 Swiss francs exchanged for seven kronenthaler. The five-franc coin of 25.0 g, 90% fine silver became the coin with the closest value to the different historical thalers.
These currencies in Denmark and Sweden were replaced by the Danish krone and Swedish krona in 1873, the new currencies introduced by the Scandinavian Monetary Union. Norway joined the Monetary Union and introduced the Norwegian krone in 1876.
The North German thaler, valued at a Conventionsthaler, or 13 to a Cologne Mark, fine silver at the start of the 19th century, was revalued in the 1840s at par with the Prussian thaler, at 14 to a Mark, though with varying subdivisions. In 1857, the Vereinsthaler, worth one North German thaler, or 1 South German gulden, was adopted as the standard coin by most German states as well as in the Habsburg Empire. Vereinsthalers were issued until 1871 in Germany and 1867 in Austria.
Within the new German Empire, silver vereinsthaler coins remained unlimited legal tender at a value of three German gold marks until 1908 when they were withdrawn and demonetized. Some old countermarked thalers circulated as emergency coinage in Germany during the inflationary period following its defeat in the First World War.
The Maria Theresa thaler, the most famous example of the Conventionsthaler minted from 1751, enjoyed a special role as trade currency and continued to be minted long after the death of Maria Theresa in 1780, with coins minted after her death always showing the year 1780. Francis Joseph of Austria declared it an official trade coinage in 1857 just before it lost legal tender status in Austria following issue of the Vereinsthaler. The Maria Theresa taler became the de facto currency of the Ethiopian Empire in the late 18th century, with the Ethiopian birr introduced at par with this taler, and it continued to be in use into the 20th century in the Horn of Africa, Eastern Africa and India and throughout much of the Arabian Peninsula.
Nonetheless, use of the thaler as currency continued outside Europe in the form of the U.S. dollar and the Canadian dollar, the Mexican peso and the various pesos of Spanish America, and the Ethiopian birr. Thaler (and its linguistic variants) would also survive as the informal name of coins equivalent to the historical coin, like the German three-mark coin, the Dutch 2-gulden coin, the five-franc coins of the Latin Monetary Union (among them France, Belgium, Switzerland), and the Greek five-drachma coin (τάληρο, taliro).
Thaler-sized coins minted to late-19th-century standards would be minted until 1914 in Mexico and in most of Europe, until 1928 in Switzerland, and until 1934 in the United States. Henceforth thaler-sized silver coins would be minted as bullion or numismatic pieces, among them:
Unrelated to specific coins, thaler survives in various modern currency names, in the form dollar in twenty-three currencies used in countries including Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand and the United States of America, and also in the Samoan tālā and the Slovenian tolar (before adoption of the euro).
|
|
