Swedish Occupation of Augsburg

Sale: Triton X, Lot: 993. Estimate $1500.  Closing Date: Monday, 8 January 2007.  Sold For $1800. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

GERMANY, Augsburg (Stadt). Gustavus Adolphus. King of Sweden, 1611-1632. AR Taler. Dated 1632. GVSTAV : ADOLPH : D : G • SVECO : GOTHO : VANDALO : REX • MAG (rosette), armored and draped bust facing half right / PRINC : FINLAND : DVX ETHO : ET • CARDOM : ING, crowned coat of arms; 16 32 above, pine cone on base (mintmark) below . Forster 240; Davenport 4543; KM A68. In NGC slab graded MS 63, toned.

Augsburg’s coinage vividly records changes in the city’s leadership during the Thirty Years’ War. This taler was minted in the name of Gustavus Adolphus, the Swedish king who occupied the predominantly Protestant city beginning in 1632. Only a few years after this coin was produced, the Habsburgs recaptured Augsburg, and the city resumed producing coins in the name of the Holy Roman Emperor.