Imitating the Leeuwendaalder
Trade Lion Dollars From the Lasser Collection

Triton XVIII, Lot: 1526. Estimate $500. Sold for $400. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

GERMANY, Jever (Grafschaft). Karl Wilhelm von Anhalt-Zerbst. 1667-1718. AR Taler – 40 Stüber (41mm, 26.50 g, 1h). Imitating a Leeuwendaalder of the Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden (Dutch Republic). Dated 1676. · CAR · W · P · A · C · · A · D · S · B · I · & · K ·, armored half-length figure of soldier standing left, head right; coat-of-arms below / (star) IN · DOMINO · FIDUCIA · NOSTRA : 40 · S : 1676, lion rampant left. Davenport 6859; KM 74. VF, toned.

From the Joseph R Lasser Collection for the benefit of The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

First struck in 1575 in the Dutch province of Holland during the Eighty Years' War, the leeuwendaalder, or 'lion dollar' supplanted the Burgundian kruisdaalder, or 'cross dollar', which had been circulating throughout the Low Countries and was seen as a remnant of Spanish overlordship. Soon, the other provinces of the Dutch Republic were minting leeuwendaalders well into the seventeenth century (see lot 1637). Unlike the concurrent rijksdaalder, first struck in 1584 and which was valued at 50 stuivers, the lighter leeuwendaalder, valued at between 36 and 42 stuivers, became a more attractive way for Dutch merchants to pay their overseas debts. Owing to the expanding Dutch mercantile empire in the seventeenth century, the leeuwendaalder consequently became an attractive international trade currency, and was popular in parts of Europe, the Middle East, the Americas, and Asia. The leeuwendaalder was also copied in a number of cities in Germany and Italy due to its popularity as a trade currency. Circulating also in Transylvania, where it was also copied, the leeuwendaalder lent its name to the modern currencies of Romania and Moldavia as the leu or 'lion'.