St Wenceslas is the central motif on Czechoslovak commemorative coins. And there is a good reason for it: in 1929, 750,000 believers celebrated the 1000th anniversary of his death. A coin series issued between 1923 and 1936 – on offer at Künker on 26 January 2022 – demonstrates how important St Wenceslas was for young Czechoslovakia.
We all think we know him: Frederick the Wise who hid Luther at Wartburg Castle to protect him from imperial reprisals. As part of the Köhlmoos Collection, Künker will offer some coins featuring his portrait on 26 January 2022 that help us look beyond the myth.
In 1929, the Vatican and Italy signed the Lateran Treaty. This international agreement was the ultimate accolade for Mussolini. The Duce dreamed of an Italian empire in Africa and around the Mediterranean Sea. However, this dream turned into a nightmare.
After the First World War, Italy suffered from frustrated nationalism and inflation. The left-wing journalist Benito Mussolini made use of this environment. He switched sides and, within a few years, seized power by force and ended up at the top of a fascist dictatorship.
When the big landowners in South Italy started to spend an increasing amount of time away from their estates, a phenomenon emerged that still plagues Italy today: the mafia. Since the unification of Italy, organized crime has exerted massive influence on politics.
Have you ever wondered why there were so many large gold coins weighing several ducats in the early modern period? We’ll show you with the help of some spectacular examples from the upcoming Numismatica Genevensis auction.
Heidelberger Münzhandlung presents a new testimony to the active cooperation between China and Germany: a pattern of the Dragon Dollar for Yunnan, produced with German minting presses.
On 16 November 2021, Numismatica Genevensis will be auctioning a very important rarity: 5 francs, 1886 – the rarest silver crown of the Latin Monetary Union. Produced around the same time as the Morgan dollar, its rareness also shares the same economic and historical background: the overproduction of silver in the American town of Virginia City, Nevada.
Medals reflect contemporary history, as demonstrated by the W. Risse Collection ‘Nuditas in nummis’. Johannes Nollé reveals the connection between the art of the 19th century and the plaques produced by French medallists from 1870 to 1940.
For more than a century, Prussian kings ruled over the Swiss Principality of Neuchâtel. By means of coins from the Axel Tesmer Collection, which will be on sale on 28 and 29 September 2021 at Künker in Osnabrück, this article explains how that came about and which coins commemorate this period.
