A brakteat from a group of excellent 19th-century forgeries, which, for the sake of credibility, were sold on the occasion of the discovery of the treasure in Pełczyska.
As Kazimierz Stronczynski emphasized, this treasure, found in September 1844, was one of the largest and most important of the period. Its size is well reflected in the words"what was saved from it from the crucible a dozen thousand more pieces could amount to". The moment decided to take advantage of the forgers of the time by introducing a group of coins attributed to Leszek the Black and Przemysław I. These were inscribed coins that were questioned by collectors of the time, as we describe in more detail in the previous entry.
However, this type did not cause controversy at the time! In his collection, Emeryk Hutten-Czapski described it as an original, attributing its origin to the very find from Pełczysk. The originality was not disputed by Stronczynski either. However, today, seeing its style of workmanship, its form, it should be attributed to that group of forgeries.
It is a nondescript brakteat with a depiction of a knight standing upright, raising his sword and shield, inscribed in a rosette and ottoman.
Its "success" may have been due to its skillful resemblance to another of the brakteates from the treasure in Pełczyska. Differing in that this one depicts a knight, while that one depicts Saint Maurice (also depicted with a shield and sword, but with a nimbus around his head). As we can read about them in Coins of Old Poland: "both of them, or at least the first one [with the knight] with great resemblance to the truth can be awarded to Przemysław I, Duke of Wielkopolska."
On the back the number in ink (13) from the old collection.
