Sale: Triton XIII, Lot: 1757. Estimate $200.  Closing Date: Monday, 4 January 2010.  Sold For $700. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

AUSTRIA, Holy Roman Empire. Ferdinand I. As King of Bohemia and Hungary, 1526-1564. AR 6 Kreuzerklippe (3.32 g, 2h). Ottoman siege issue. Wien (Vienna) mint. Dated 1529. TVRCK/BLEGERT/WIEN in three lines; floral designs at cardinal points / Cross pattée; in each quarter, coats-of-arms of Niederösterreich, Castile, Hungary, and Bohemia. Maillet pl. CXXI, 10; Cejnek p. 14. VF.

From the Leonard O. Greenfield Collection.

The siege of Vienna in 1529 was the first of two sieges by the Ottoman Turks against the city (the later coming in 1683). After a successful military campaign in Hungary, the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman I advanced on Vienna with an enormous force in the fall of 1529. However, due to poor weather and a strong defense of the city, he was soon forced to abandon the siege. This event was a highwater mark for the Turkish expansion. For more than a century afterwards, the Ottoman Empire would not have the power to threaten central Europe.