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A thaler or taler is one of the large silver coins minted in the states and territories of the Holy Roman Empire and the Habsburg monarchy during the Early Modern period. A thaler size silver coin has a diameter of about 40 mm and a weight of about 25 to 30 grams. The word is shortened from Joachimsthaler, the original thaler coin minted in Joachimsthal, Bohemia, from 1520.
The ducat coin was used as a trade coin in Europe from the later Middle Ages to the 19th century. Its most familiar version, the gold ducat or sequin containing around 3.5 grams of 98.6% fine gold, originated in Venice in 1284 and gained wide international acceptance over the centuries. Similarly named silver ducatons also existed. The gold ducat circulated along with the Florentine florin and preceded both the modern British pound sterling and the United States dollar.
The German mark was the currency of the German Empire, which spanned from 1871 to 1918. The mark was paired with the minor unit of the pfennig (₰); 100 pfennigs were equivalent to 1 mark. The mark was on the gold standard from 1871 to 1914, but like most nations during World War I, the German Empire removed the gold backing in August 1914, and gold coins ceased to circulate.
The Kreuzer, in English also spelled kreutzer, was a coin and unit of currency in the southern German states prior to the introduction of the German gold mark in 1871–1873, and in Austria and Switzerland. After 1760 it was made of copper. In south Germany the kreuzer was typically worth 4 pfennigs and there were 60 kreuzers to a gulden. Kreuzer was abbreviated as Kr, kr, K or Xr.
The Vereinsthaler was a standard silver coin used in most German states and the Austrian Empire in the years before German unification.
The Conventionstaler or Konventionstaler, was a standard silver coin in the Austrian Empire and the southern German states of the Holy Roman Empire from the mid-18th to early 19th-centuries. Its most famous example is the Maria Theresa thaler which is still minted today. The Conventionsgulden was equivalent to a 1⁄2Conventionsthaler.
The Reichsthaler, or more specifically the Reichsthaler specie, was a standard thaler silver coin introduced by the Holy Roman Empire in 1566 for use in all German states, minted in various versions for the next 300 years, and containing 25–26 grams fine silver.
The Austro-Hungarian gulden was the currency of the lands of the House of Habsburg between 1754 and 1892, when it was replaced by the Austro-Hungarian krone as part of the introduction of the gold standard. In Austria, the gulden was initially divided into 60 kreuzers. The currency was decimalized in 1857, using the same names for the unit and subunit.
The South German Gulden was the currency of the states of Southern Germany between 1754 and 1873. These states included Bavaria, Baden, Württemberg, Frankfurt and Hohenzollern. It was divided into 60 kreuzer, with each kreuzer worth 4 pfennig or 8 heller.
The Hamburg Mark refers to two distinct currencies issued in the city of Hamburg until 1875:
The North German thaler was the currency of the Electorate and Kingdom of Saxony until 1857. Between 1754 and 1841, it was equal to three quarters of a Conventionsthaler and was subdivided into 24 Groschen, each of 12 Pfennig. In 1841, Saxony partially decimalized, dividing the Thaler into 30 Neugroschen, each of 10 Pfennig. The Thaler was replaced by the Vereinsthaler at par.
The Dresden Coinage Convention of 1838 was a multilateral treaty that attempted to bring some degree of standardisation to the currencies used in the Zollverein.
The Munich Coinage Treaty of 1837 was a treaty between six southern German states who agreed to form the South German Coinage Union and to unify their currencies together with some of the central German states. The Munich Coinage Treaty was updated by the South German Coinage Convention of 1845. The agreement is less commonly known as the Munich Coin Treaty.
The North German thaler was a currency used by several states of Northern Germany from 1690 to 1873, first under the Holy Roman Empire, then by the German Confederation. Originally equal to the Reichsthaler specie or silver coin from 1566 until the Kipper und Wipper crisis of 1618, a thaler currency unit worth less than the Reichsthaler specie was first defined in 1667 and became widely used after adoption of the Leipzig currency standard of 1690.
The history of Saxon coinage or Meissen-Saxon coinage comprises three major periods: the high medieval regional pfennig period, the late medieval pfennig period and the thaler period, which ended with the introduction of the mark in 1871/72. Rich silver deposits, which were discovered near Freiberg after the middle of the 12th century, helped Saxony to a leading position in German coinage.
A Münzfuß is an historical term, used especially in the Holy Roman Empire, for an official minting or coinage standard that determines how many coins of a given type were to be struck from a specified unit of weight of precious metal. The Münzfuß, or Fuß ("foot") for short in numismatics, determined a coin's fineness, i.e. how much of a precious metal it would contain. Mintmaster Julian Eberhard Volckmar Claus defined the standard in his 1753 work, Kurzgefaßte Anleitung zum Probieren und Münzen, as follows: "The appropriate proportion of metals and the weight of the coin, measured according to their internal and external worth, or determined according to their quality, additives and fineness, number and weight, is called the Münzfuß."
A Konventionsfuß was a coinage standard established by state treaty, the convention. The first one was between Austria and a number of German states of the Holy Roman Empire in the mid-18th century. This Convention determined that 20 gulden or 10 Speziesthaler be minted from a single Cologne mark of fine silver. Since the Cologne mark weighed approximately 233 g, one gulden had a fine weight of 11.69 g of silver.
The Carolingian monetary system, also called the Carolingian coinage system or just the Carolingian system, was a currency structure introduced by Charlemagne in the late 8th century as part of a major reform, the effects of which subsequently dominated much of Europe, including Britain, for centuries. It is characterised by having three denominations with values in the ratio 1:12:240, the units of which went under different names in the different languages, but which corresponded to the Latin terms libra (pound), solidus (shilling) and denarius (penny), respectively.
A coin base weight (Münzgrundgewicht) is a mathematical reference for the minting of coins that was used in the monetary systems of the Holy Roman Empire. In conjunction with the coin standard (Münzfuß), the coin base weight indicates how many coins are to be minted from a specified standard weight.
References
- ↑ "Appendix: Monetary Treaty Between the German States of January 24, 1857". Journal of Political Economy. 4 (2): 270–279. 1896. doi:10.1086/250356. ISSN 0022-3808. JSTOR 1817873.
- ↑ Willis, Henry Parker (1896). "The Vienna Monetary Treaty of 1857". Journal of Political Economy. 4 (2): 187–207. doi:10.1086/250342. ISSN 0022-3808.