Lot 597
German States -- Constance. Regimenstaler, 1629. Dav-5179; Nau-294; Berst-449; KM-142. Shields separating date at top over city view with CONSTANTIA below. Reverse: Five shields in center surrounded by 22 arms. Considerable luster beneath a lovely natural iridescent toning. Very rare. NGC graded MS-63.
In a way, one can consider German coinage to be remarkably similar to ancient Greek coinage. Like the ancient Greeks, the Germans had a sense of mutual ethnic identity, based on common language, race and history of similar traditions, yet for all their shared commonalities, also like the Greeks, they lacked a distinct political sense of themselves -- an absence not so much of nationalism as of a whole, single entity. The myriad Germanic principalities, at their most basic, were not unlike the Greek city-state.
Thus the coins of the principalities and their cities, particularly during the 16th through 18th centuries, could essentially be viewed as a means of identity that displayed uniqueness of the issuer -- what it might be that set them apart from their neighbors. Whether informative and factual, such as portraits and coats of arms, whether allegorical, to display qualities or attributes that made them admirable or morally superior, or whether one of the popular and oft repeated city "views," one can observe in the German coins of the realm traits and means already utilized nearly two thousand years earlier.
Estimated Value $5,000 - 6,000.
Ex Irving Goodman Collection.
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| Realized $7,763 |
