A beautiful piece in practice of the only available silver coin of King Michael Coribut.
Of the several pieces that have appeared in commerce, this one can be ranked as one of the finest.
Piece from an old collection, in a beautiful natural patina, of a crown gold coin minted in Bydgoszcz in 1671.
The coin, which, according to Lengnich, was minted in 5,000 pieces by order of Andrzej Morsztyn, Grand Treasurer of the Crown.
According to Czapski, this gold coin was minted in a small quantity in order to be submitted to the upcoming Diet, which was to pass a law allowing it to be minted. It was therefore a specimen sample, not a circulating coin. However, that parliament was broken up, and as a result, the coins were to be melted down at the mint on the king's orders.
This led to an even greater rarity of this coin. Of the 5,000 pieces, only a small portion of the mintage probably survived.
Interesting both historically and heraldically, the reverse of which bears the initials of Michal Hodermann - the warden of the Bydgoszcz mint. However, it is the coat of arms on the obverse that is unique in the scale of the Polish mint, as the specialist, Zbigniew Kiełb, points out:
"Also unique on the scale of the entire Polish minting of the period 1479-1707 is the location of the coat of arms of the Minister of the Treasury - here - Jan Andrzej Morsztyn of the Leliwa coat of arms on crossed keys. This is the only such case. Their function was not to embellish it, but to unambiguously indicate the person responsible and supervising the production of the trial coins of 1671. This person was, by virtue of his office as Minister of the Treasury in the Crown, Jan Andrzej Morsztyn, whose sign of dignity as Grand Treasurer were precisely two keys."
A rarity. Especially in this state of preservation.
Silver, diameter 32 mm, weight 10.0 g
