First time at auction in Poland.
Here is one of the first heavy thalers of King Sigismund III. One of the rarest.
The thaler coin in the minting of Sigismund III Vasa appears already in the first years of his reign. However, it has a medal-like, prestigious character, and its issues are small. It becomes a coin of general circulation only at the end of his reign, when from 1627 the main crown mint, in Bydgoszcz, focuses its production on this denomination.
All earlier thalers belong to very rare coins. At our last auction we had the opportunity to offer you a thaler of the 1626 vintage (sold for 126,000 zlotys). A vintage that Jan Dostych, the author of catalogs for Sigismund's thalers, knew from 16 pieces. The 1625 yearbook he knows of only six!
Three of them are museum pieces (the National Museum in Warsaw, Cracow and the Hermitage). Three more are from famous collections: Kubicki (1908), Frankiewicz (1931) and Karolkiewicz (2000). The present one is the seventh piece, which also has an excellent provenance. It is a coin from the Potocki collection, with the count's collector's punch mark in the background, behind the figure of the king.
Piece with traces of mounting and old background chiseling. In an old patina, and above all with good legibility. Especially for a coin that has not appeared at world auctions for a quarter of a century.
