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My newps (or, signs of a mid-life crisis?)

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The guy from whom I purchased them is a prominent long-time contributor here, and I've already told him that he'd better have a collection agency on speed dial. (tsk)

 

Without further ado, I now introduce you to my latest presumptive acquisitions:

 

The first piece is from a place called Julich-Cleves-Berg. It was a personal union of two reichsfrei duchies of the Holy Roman Empire. It was located in what is now the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the Dutch province of Gelderland.

 

At the time of this coin's minting, the union was wealthy and lead by the Duke William the Rich. Scarcely over a hundred years later, the territory became absorbed by Prussia and became the seed of the future Prussian Rhineland.

 

Some may recall that one of the wives of Henry VIII of England was Anne of Cleves. Then, as now, the area was wealthy.

 

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The second piece is from Upper Alsace, from two abbeys Murbach and Luders founded in the 8th century that since almost their inception had a common ruling abbot. They had been minting coins since the 12th century, but were officially granted permission in 1544. The obverse is of Saint Leodegar, whose martyrdom in the 7th century and subsequent canonization was mainly due to political concerns.

 

A lovely specimen, and scarce too. (This was the piece that I really wanted; one of my university degrees is History, and one of my interests was medieval Church history. Those of you with an interest in both IT and medieval Church history might appreciate this: long ago I once supported a Sun server hosting NFS shares via PC-NFS to a bunch of Windows boxes. I named that Sun server 'manichee'. :D )

 

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The final piece is from Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach, with a modest mintage of only 1,875 (or so I am told by my pusher/dealer).

 

The territory was named Sachsen-Eisenach until its line became extinct with the passing of its duke. In 1741, its possessions reverted to Sachsen-Weimar and henceforth known by all three places. (The Germans love to hyphenate!) In 1763, the duke was a young Karl August whose regent was his mother Anna Amalia of Brunswick (depicted on the obverse).

 

(The mintmark, FS, denotes Friedrich Siegmund Schafer who was the mint master in Eisenach from 1755-76.)

 

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