On December 30, 1883, the Ottoman ruler drafted a decree by which he invested the German Emperor William I, his new confederate, into the Golden Order of Merit of his country, called Nishan Imtiyaz. That honor was intended to strengthen the political ties between the German Emperor and the Empire at the Bosporus River…
Why issued Emperor Ferdinand III a gold medallion on his son’s coronation to King of Hungary and Bohemia only ten years later? This numismatic question leads us in the middle of the bloody Thirty Years’ War and to Wallenstein.
Walter of Plettenberg managed to introduce the Reformation in Livonia in 1522 and, at the same time, to secure the continuity of the Order’s reign. From him comes a very special gold giant…
On February 6th, 2016, 42 Chinese coin dies and 36 punches from the holdings of Otto Beh’s company will be handed over to the state coin cabinet of Saxony-Anhalt. They attest to an exciting chapter of German history of technology.
The last reigning count of Montfort sold his county to the Austrians and retired on a pension. Thus ended a secular history of his family which coin collectors might know particularly as producer of fake and imitative coins.
Countless coins from the Holy Roman Empire show something many catalogs briefly address as “neck chain” of the Order of the Golden Fleece. This article will explain, when and where this chivalric order originated and why it became the most important order of knights all over the Old World…
On November 22, 2011, the auction house Rapp in Wil will auction off a numismatic relic of one remarkable event in the history of sports. On July 4, 1954 Lászlo Budai and the legendary “Mighty Magyars” won “only” silver…
On March 13, sale no. 247 of Osnabrück auction house Künker offers the Baums Collection featuring historical medals. The connoisseur discovers many historically interesting, artistically enchanting medals, like a piece that was created by Sebastian Dadler on the occasion of the funeral of Gustavus II Adolphus of Sweden at Riddarholm Church.
In 1892 a joke did the rounds in South Africa. Finally the newly minted coins had been put into circulation. They depicted the …
What does an alchemist do in order to make an emperor believe that he is capable of transmuting silver into gold? Well, he lets him see for himself…
