Sale: Triton X, Lot: 1005. Estimate $750.  Closing Date: Monday, 8 January 2007.  Sold For $450. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

GERMANY, Braunschweig-Lüneburg. Rudolph August. Duke, 1666-1685. AR Medal (56.05 g, 12h). Commemorating the death of Prince August Friedrich of Wolfenbüttel. Johann Georg Breuer, engraver. Dated 1676. AVG : FRIDERIC ; D • BRVNS : ET • LVN :, bust of August Friedrich right; BREVER at base of bust / ODOR • AD • POSTEROS, emperor, holding scepter and globus cruciger, seated on throne below canopy inscribed MAIESTAS IMPERII; OCCVR : AD • EREPTAM • GALLIS • / PHILIPSBVRG • / M • DC • LXXVI • in three lines in exergue. Brockmann 266a; Fiala 1211; Knyphausen 959. VF, toned, a few field marks.

From the Collection of a California Gentleman.

Prince August Friedrich of Wolfenbüttel died at the age of 18 on 22 August 1676 from wounds inflicted during the siege of Philippsburg, a town near Germany’s border with France. France had held the city since 1644, and during the Franco-Dutch War of 1672-1678, the Holy Roman Empire and its German allies organized a force to take it back. Because of the prince’s untimely death, Princess Sophie Dorothea of Celle, whom August was set to marry, would instead marry Georg Ludwig of Hannover (later George I of Britain). Therefore, the Celle and Wolfenbüttel lines of the Welf dynasty would remain separate.