1696 Austrian States Hungary 1/2 Silver Taler Leopold I Hogmouth, KB mint

Description

1696 Austrian States Hungary 1/2 Silver Taler Leopold I Hogmouth, KB mint
Description
1696 Hungarian Silver ½ Taler
Leopold I  The Hogmouth, Holy Roman Emperor
.
Struck on roller dies at the Kremnitz
mint,
KB
.
Weight 14.31g   Diameter 36 mm
High Grade appealing coin with silvery lustre and every lock of Leopold’s coiffure fully struck. Brilliant silver toning and razor sharp detail with Shield and Madonna and child crystal clear in legend.  Beautiful silver toning and brilliant details Very impressive and well-preserved. VF/XF
In the Holy Roman Empire, the Thaler was used as the standard against which the various states' currencies could be valued.
This type of Taler was struck at other mints throughout Leopold’s empire and thus the quality of the strike/die varied between each mint. This type struck in Hungary can be identified by the K.B letters on reverse.
Usually a lot of the talers struck at the Kremnitz Mint were inferior in regards to quality of strike compared to those struck at the Hall Mint in Austria as the Kremnitz Mint did not have the same advanced minting technology as the mint in Hall and thus to find one of this quality is extremely hard to find.
Leopold I possessed a more extreme example of the Habsburg jaw which is evident from his portraits which depict it rather consistently. On his coins this feature is depicted less consistently ranging from a slight protrusion to the extremely pronounced distended jaw which led to the nickname: Leopold the Hogmouth.
Leopold I, Holy Roman emperor 1640-1705, Holy Roman emperor (1658-1705), king of Bohemia (1656-1705) and of Hungary (1655-1705). Leopold I Holy Roman emperor during whose lengthy reign (1658-1705) Austria emerged from a series of struggles with the Turks and the French to become a great European power, in which monarchical absolutism and administrative centralism gained ascendancy
Obverse Description:
Crowned half-length broad laureate and armoured bust of Leopold looking forward to right wearing Order of the Golden Fleece.
Monster-faced shoulder drapery!
Obverse Legend
: • LEOPOLD • (Madonna and child in frame) D • G • R • I • S • AVGE • (shield) HV • B• REX •
Translation:
Leopold, by the grace of God, Emperor of the Romans, Ever Augustus, King of Germany, Hungary, and Bohemia
Reverse Description:
Crowned imperial double-eagle, crest on breast of Tyrolian eagle., K | B across fields
Reverse Legend:
• ARCHID • AV • DV • BV • MAR • MOR • CO • TY • 16 (crown) 95.
Translation:
Archduke of Austria, Duke of Burgundy, Margrave of Moravia, Count of Tyrol 1695
Reference:
KM# 220
If for any reason you are not happy with your purchase we will refund your money back (see return policy)
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Ruler at time of minting
Leopold I ( 9 June 1640 – 5 May 1705) was Holy Roman Emperor, King of Hungary and Croatia and King of Bohemia.
Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor
(name in full:
Leopold Ignaz Joseph Balthasar Felician
) Habsburg (June 9, 1640 – May 5, 1705), Holy Roman emperor, was the second son of the emperor Ferdinand III and his first wife Maria Anna of Spain. His maternal grandparents were Philip III of Spain and Margarita of Austria.
He was a younger brother of Ferdinand IV of Hungary and Mariana of Austria. Intended for the Church, he received a good education but his prospects were changed by the death of his elder brother Ferdinand IV, on July 9, 1654 of smallpox, when he became his father’s heir.
Leopold was physically unprepossessing. Short and sickly, he had inherited the Habsburg lip to a degree unusual even in his inbred family. One contemporary said of him. His gait was stately, slow and deliberate; his air pensive, his address awkward, his manner uncouth, his disposition cold and phlegmatic.
In 1655 he was chosen king of Hungary and in 1656 king of Bohemia,1657 king of Croatia and in July 1658, more than a year after his father’s death, he was elected emperor at Frankfurt in spite of the intrigues of Jules Cardinal Mazarin, who wished to place on the imperial throne Ferdinand Maria, Elector of Bavaria or some other prince whose elevation would break the Habsburg succession.
Mazarin, however, obtained a promise from the new emperor that he would not send assistance to Spain, then at war with France, and, by joining a confederation of German princes, called the league of the Rhine, France secured a certain influence in the internal affairs of Germany. Leopold’s long reign covers one of the most important periods of European history; for nearly the whole of its forty-seven years he was pitted against Louis XIV of France, whose dominant personality completely overshadowed Leopold. The emperor was not himself a man of war, and never led his troops in person; yet the greater part of his public life was spent in arranging and directing wars. The first was with Sweden, whose king Charles X found a useful ally in the prince of Transylvania, György II Rákóczi, a rebellious vassal of the Hungarian crown.
This war, a legacy of the last reign, was waged by Leopold as the ally of Poland until peace was made at Oliva in 1660. A more dangerous foe next entered the lists. The Ottoman Empire interfered in the affairs of Transylvania, always an unruly district, and this interference brought on a war with the Holy Roman Empire, which after some desultory operations really began in 1663. By a personal appeal to the diet at Regensburg Leopold induced the princes to send assistance for the campaign; troops were also sent by France, and in August 1664 the great imperialist general, Raimondo Montecuccoli, gained a notable victory at Saint Gotthard. By the Peace of Vasvár the emperor made a twenty years' truce with the sultan, granting more generous terms than his recent victory seemed to render necessary.
After a few years of peace began the first of three wars between France and the Empire. The aggressive policy pursued by Louis XIV towards the United Provinces had aroused the serious attention of Europe, and steps had been taken to check it. Although the French king had sought the alliance of several German princes and encouraged the Turks in their attacks on Austria the emperor at first took no part in this movement. He was on friendly terms with Louis, to whom he was closely related and with whom he had already discussed the partition of the lands of the Spanish monarchy; moreover, in 1671, he arranged with him a treaty of neutrality.
In 1672, however, he was forced to take action. He entered into an alliance for the defence of the United Provinces during the Franco-Dutch War; then, after this league had collapsed owing to the defection of the elector of Brandenburg, the more durable Quadruple Alliance was formed for the same purpose, including, besides the emperor, the king of Spain and several German princes, and the war was renewed. At this time, twenty-five years after the peace of Westphalia, the Empire was virtually a confederation of independent princes, and it was very difficult for its head to conduct any war with vigour and success, some of its members being in alliance with the enemy and others being only lukewarm in their support of the imperial interests. Thus this struggle, which lasted until the end of 1678, was on the whole unfavourable to Germany, and the advantages of the Treaty of Nijmegen were with France.
Almost immediately after the conclusion of peace Louis renewed his aggressions on the German frontier through the
Réunions
policy. Engaged in a serious struggle with the Ottoman Empire, the emperor was again slow to move, and although he joined the Association League against France in 1682 he was glad to make a truce at Regensburg two years later. In 1686 the League of Augsburg was formed by the emperor and the imperial princes, to preserve the terms of the treaties of Westphalia and of Nijmegen. The whole European position was now bound up with events in England, and the tension lasted until 1688, when William III of Orange won the English crown through the Glorious Revolution and Louis invaded Germany. In May 1689, the Grand Alliance was formed, including the emperor, the kings of England, Spain and Denmark, the elector of Brandenburg and others, and a fierce struggle against France was waged throughout almost the whole of western Europe. In general the several campaigns were favourable to the allies, and in September 1697, England, Spain and the United Provinces made peace with France at the Treaty of Rijswijk.
To this treaty, Leopold refused to assent, as he considered that his allies had somewhat neglected his interests, but in the following month he came to terms and a number of places were transferred from France to Germany. The peace with France lasted for about four years and then Europe was involved in the War of the Spanish Succession. The king of Spain, Charles II, was a Habsburg by descent and was related by marriage to the Austrian branch, while a similar tie bound him to the royal house of France. He was feeble and childless, and attempts had been made by the European powers to arrange for a peaceable division of his extensive kingdom. Leopold refused to consent to any partition, and when in November 1700 Charles died, leaving his crown to Philip, duke of Anjou, a grandson of Louis XIV, all hopes of a peaceable settlement vanished. Under the guidance of William III a powerful league, a renewed Grand Alliance, was formed against France; of this the emperor was a prominent member, and in 1703 he transferred his claim on the Spanish monarchy to his second son, the Archduke of Austria, also known as Charles III of Hungary. The early course of the war was not favourable to the imperialists, but the tide of defeat had been rolled back by the great victory of Blenheim before Leopold died on May 5, 1705.
.
Kremnitz
mint.
Kremnica Town castle
Kremnitz or
Kremnica is a town in central Slovaki and is a well-preserved medieval town built above important major gold mines due to the abundant gold ore deposits in the Kremnica Mountains and is the site of the oldest still-working mint in the world.
In the 13th century the inhabitants of this area were affected by the invasion of the Mongols. Following that difficult period, Hungarian kings invited new colonists from germany to settle in the region to help replenish the decimated population. They went on to restore the mining activities in the town. The first written reference to the town dates back to 1328, when it was granted royal town privileges by King Charles I of Hungary.
The town's mint was already in existence at the time of the granting of royal privileges. Starting in 1335 the mint produced golden florins and later the famous "Kremnica ducats", which were used as an international means of payment as a result of their consistently high purity of gold. It was the most important mint, and later the only one, in the Kingdom of Hungary, in Czechosovakia and nowadays in Slovakia; the prosperity brought to the town led to it being given the nickname "Golden Kremnica".
In 1331, Kremnica became the seat of the Chamber Count (
Kammergraf
) who was the head of the most important mining and minting chamber of the Kingdom of Hungary. The Count administered all the mines and mints in twelve countries of the kingdom in the Middle Ages.
At the end of the 14th century, Kremnica became the capital of the mining towns in central Upper Hungary. The steady annual production of gold and silver guaranteed the prosperous development of the town. In the 15th century Kreminca was the second most important city in the Kingdom of Hungary. The town was continuously being granted new privileges and the deputies of the town occupied the second place in the Hungarian Diet (the first place was reserved for the representatives of Buda, the capital of the Kingdom).
Gold mining and coin production in Kremnica culminated in the 14th and 15th centuries. As one of the most important centers of Protestant refgormation in the country, the town belonged to the Protestant "League of Seven Mining Towns" together with Banska Bela, Banska Bvstrica, Banska Stiavnica, Lubietova, Nova Bana, and Pukanec.
In the 16th century, the town was a major centre of production of (mostly religious) medals, especially by Joachim Deschler. At the same time however, the miners had to dig deeper and deeper to reach new deposits and the mining conditions deteriorated because of underground water in the shafts. The cost of mining increased and the mining was becoming less profitable. The last gold was extracted in Kremnica in 1970, at which time all the mines were closed.
Old Kremnitz mint building, now exposition of historical machines.
Taler
The Taler is a Silver Dollar that can be said to of have evolved from the
Guldengroschen
which was a large
silver
coin
originally minted in
Tyrol
in 1486  during the reign of Sigismund the Archduke of Austria and then later by the counts of Schlick at Joachimsthal, Bohemia, in 1519, which because of its novel and particularly well-crafted coins, resulted in other realms imitating and minting of a series of silver denominations in imitation in order to compete and profit from the needs of not only a growing local economy but also from securing opportunities to finance transactions of an international nature that were arising from the discoveries in the New World.
Typical Mint in 1600s
The outside of the mill. Big wooden wheel under the waterfall. It turns by means of water running
Mill wheel
The wheel rotates the arbor connected to three heavy hammers for coining. The oven can be seen to the left.
Cangs were made here – they are ingots of silver of the needed mark of assay. They were burnt and beaten out to the needed thickness; then planchets were cut with the help of tinsnips. Ready-made coin circles were matched and then corrected by weight.
Roller Dies for minting
The roller press utilised several die impressions which were cut on a pair of rollers and a strip of coin metal passed between them as they turned. The resulting strip of coins was then taken either to a punch press, where the coins were punched off the strip, or the coins were punched out by hand. At a time when each blank had to be placed by hand on the anvil die of a standard press, and then removed by hand, the roller press provided a significant savings in time.
A corollary result of the roller process was a tendency to produce coins with a curvature along one axis. This made them a bit difficult to stack, which was a definite drawback. Sometimes one will even find on occasion what appears to be a double bend. Usually this will be on larger, thicker coins such as half thalers and talers. The feature is explained as either a kink in the smooth turning of the rollers or else a deliberate act of the mint worker, who, seeing a not very well struck coin coming out, backed up the rollers to try again.
Rollers for roller milling and unfinished sheet metal strip showing the obverse and reverse of a Rudolf II (1575 to 1612) double thaler, Hall, 1604
Contact Details
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We endeavour to provide accurate descriptions and details of the items for sale and any opinion of quality is just that- our opinion and we give no warranties either expressed or implied as to our opinion especially respecting grades. This is because grading can vary depending on many factors such as tone colour strike blemishes and overall combination of all the before mentioned even between professional graders so please make your own examination from the photos so as to make your own assessment.
If for whatever reason you are not completely happy with your purchase, please email me with your concerns within 7 days and if they cannot be resolved, then so long as you return it to me in the same condition as it was sent I will give you a refund of the sale cost of the item.
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