The gold coin is effectively the only available silver coin of King Michael Coribut.
A coin that, according to Lengnich, was minted with a mere 5,000 pieces!
After the abdication of Jan Kazimierz, the Sejm decided to close all crown mints. The situation was supposed to change with the election of a new king, but after the election of Wisniowiecki the sessions of the Sejm were broken off. And from the time of this ruler we would not have had crown coins if it had not been for the decision of Jan Andrzej Morsztyn.
It was the then Grand Treasurer of the Crown who decided in 1671 to mint a small number of gold coins equal to 1/3 of a thaler. They were to be submitted to the next parliament so that it could pass a law allowing them to be minted. Thus, they were an attempt specimen, made by order, and not a circulation issue. However, this parliament was also broken up, and the coins, by order of the king, were to be melted down at the mint.
This led to their even greater rarity. Of the 5,000 pieces, only a small portion of the mintage probably survived.
This historically interesting issue, is also intriguing heraldically. Its reverse bears the initials of Michał Hodermann, the warden of the Bydgoszcz mint, but it is the coat of arms on the obverse that is unique in the scale of Polish minting. As Zbigniew Kiełb points out:
"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, Jan Andrzej Morsztyn (of the Leliwa coat of arms), on crossed keys. This is the only such case. The purpose of these keys was not to embellish the coin, but to clearly identify the person responsible and supervising the production of the 1671 proof coins. 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 was precisely the two keys."
The piece is visibly scratched, but despite its poor state of preservation, it is still a highly prized, very rare Korybut gold piece.
