A beautiful coin commemorating the counterfeiting activities of Prussian King Frederick the Great. Economic war, which in August 1756 turned into a real conflict between Prussia and Saxony of August III Saxony (Seven Years' War). One of the consequences of which was the intensification of Frederick's forgery activities.
The present sixpack is a reminder of the "modest" beginnings of the practice, which was still consuming the economy of the Republic during the reign of King Stanislaw Augustus. Modest, because before he began brazenly, and worse, also with impunity, minting sub-value coinage under the Polish stamp, in 1755 he commissioned an unusual issue at his mints. These were coins (trojaks, sixpences and orts) with iconography modeled on Polish issues, but with an undervalued proof. As Tadeusz Kalkowski adds, "this counterfeit Prussian coinage, the circulation of which was forbidden in Prussia, was brought to Poland by Frederick's agents, paying for purchased goods with it."
In 1756 he went a step further. He also embellished the portrait on a group of Königsberg sixpences. Next to Frederick's titulary[Borussorum Rex - King of Prussia] he placed a portrait "vividly" taken from the crown sixpences of August III Saxon.
The present piece is one of the finest pieces of this very rare transitional issue that was available at Polish auctions. With a beautiful shiny background, which is rare for these issues minted, after all, in lower-grade silver.
