Sale: Triton X, Lot: 994. Estimate $2000.  Closing Date: Monday, 8 January 2007.  Sold For $1800. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

GERMANY, Augsburg (Stadt). AR Taler (29.09 g, 12h). Dated 1635. AVGVSTA • VIN DELICORVM, sun rays streaming from the sky onto a hand holding palm and laurel branches over a pine cone set on a Corinthian capital / IMP : CÆS : FERD : II • P • F • GER : HVN : BOH : REX 16 35, crowned double eagle holding sword and scepter, globus cruciger on chest. Forster 254; Davenport 5035; KM 61. UNC, beautifully toned. Nice surfaces. A superb example.

Augsburg obtained the status of an Imperial Free City of the Holy Roman Empire in 1276. In 1521, it was given the right to mint coins. The city gained an important role in the Reformation as the site of the Augsburg Confession in 1530, when Protestants gathered to profess their beliefs. This taler of 1635, struck in the name of Emperor Ferdinand II, was minted during a particularly violent time in Augsburg’s history. In 1629, the Emperor enacted the Edict of Restitution, which transferred large quantities of land from Protestant to Catholic ownership, and, in the process, gave control of Augsburg to a Catholic town council. In 1632, the Protestant Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus took the city during his successful sweep into central Europe, apparently unopposed by the citizens. Two years later, Augsburg was besieged by Catholic forces seeking to return it to the Holy Roman Emperor. The long siege was incredibly costly for the people of Augsburg, and the Swedish army held the city until 1635. This taler, produced after the siege, must have been an attempt to return to earlier coin types, recalling a time when the city was firmly under Imperial control.