Collecting Hungarian denars of the 1500s-1600s by date?
lordmarcovan
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I'm curious if anybody has tried this. I'm sure someone has. Think somebody here mentioned it once.
Anyway, these little early dated silver coins have long appealed to me, since they seem to pack a lot of advantages considering their usually affordable prices. (Affordability, interesting design, silver compostion, and early dates. Everything but size- they are a bit small.)
I bought my first one when I was a teenager, from Guy Clark's mail order catalog sometime in the early 1980s. I think it was maybe $12-15 at the time, and it was a nice little coin. In the thirty years since, I've noticed you can still often get these for less than twenty bucks apiece.
I suppose one could use Krause as a basic indicator of which dates are scarcer than others, but prior to 1601, what to use as a reference for the ones from the 1500s? How feasible is an unbroken date run of these, either from one particular reign or just between any given two dates? Are there any "keys" or stoppers? Surely there must be. (As of this typing I haven't even looked at the 1600s listings in Krause.)
I see a reference to a Huszár book quite a bit.
I did manage to Google up a nice 147-page PDF.
Anyway, these little early dated silver coins have long appealed to me, since they seem to pack a lot of advantages considering their usually affordable prices. (Affordability, interesting design, silver compostion, and early dates. Everything but size- they are a bit small.)
I bought my first one when I was a teenager, from Guy Clark's mail order catalog sometime in the early 1980s. I think it was maybe $12-15 at the time, and it was a nice little coin. In the thirty years since, I've noticed you can still often get these for less than twenty bucks apiece.
I suppose one could use Krause as a basic indicator of which dates are scarcer than others, but prior to 1601, what to use as a reference for the ones from the 1500s? How feasible is an unbroken date run of these, either from one particular reign or just between any given two dates? Are there any "keys" or stoppers? Surely there must be. (As of this typing I haven't even looked at the 1600s listings in Krause.)
I see a reference to a Huszár book quite a bit.
I did manage to Google up a nice 147-page PDF.
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Cincinnati. I stopped by a foreign dealers table and asked if he had any
Hungarian coins. He showed me a box and I picked 2-3 coins out. I asked
if he had anything else and he pulled out a bag of 800+ denars. He told me
to go to the concession area and pick out what I wanted; what trust!!
An hour later I bought over 400 pieces at $3.50 each. Over the years I
was able to put together 4 complete runs from 1503-1600. One of these
ran through the 1680's. Through the 1560's nice xf-au pieces are easy to
find with little effort. After that it really gets hard to find nice coins with
both obv. and rev. The 1600's are even many times harder. There may be
some rare dates but I am not aware of any. Condition on the latter years
makes these coins rarities. Coins that I paid $4 to $10 for 30 years ago now
easily bring $25. Nice pieces (xf-au) bring $50+ easily especially the latter
years. If you have any questions please ask!!
That bulk cherrypicking sounds wonderful! I'll bet it was a lot of fun. And thanks for the data on the date run sets you built. I've long been curious about that. Anything about this Huszár reference I keep hearing cited?
book that I have found about Hungarian coinage. Line drawings or photos
for each variety. The varieties listed can be seen w/o the aid of high powered
12 to the 23 power microscope (as needed to see Lincolns fingers on the 2009
cent). He lists the ruler and then in descending order the coins minted during
that time. So under lets say Andrew Johnson he would list $20 gold then $10
and so on. During the time of denars that you were asking about there are also
coins called obolus; very rare and very pricey. Mint marks play a part; the KB
being the most common. He does give rarity numbers with each variety. The
only down fall to the book that it is written in German; so an extensive knowledge
of the language is needed. The denars of the 1600's really suffer from quality
control; truly nice pieces are rare. I purchased my book in 1984/85. I also collect
newer Hungarian coinage and to my knowledge there is no "Red Book" style
reference to aid with collecting; just the Krause "Telephone" books. I hope this
helps, sorry about my rambling. If you have any other questions please ask!!
Not sure I'm ready to dive into them that deeply, or at all. I just kicked the idea around, is all.
My inner "bargain hunter" has been perking lately. I'm a player of pawns, and have always enjoyed nice inexpensive coins that pack a lot of bang for the buck, which these denars certainly do.
I've got one sitting here right now. It is in a flip which attributes it as a "solidus/groschen" and it says "1489" on the flip, but the coins were undated prior to 1500, right? So how did that person come up with "1489"? I don't see "89" or anything.
I suppose I'll have to take a picture of it later.
But my primary interest lies in the dated pieces, and the earlier the date the better. Which is why it is heartening to hear you say the 1500s can be easier than the 1600s at times, if I understood correctly.
I have this mental image of you sitting at that concession stand table, pawing through what must have been an amazing hoard of old silver, while all around you people were eating overpriced chili-cheese dogs.
It's about 16.5 mm. Looks like a denar to me? I think that's the Madonna & Child motif on the obverse. The usual shield is of course plain on the reverse.
The engraving is a little more primitive and it seems to be undated, so I suppose it could well be a 15th century piece. But I don't know where the dealer got that "1489" from. (The dealer in this case was our own Dan Lewis, aka "danglen", of Black Mountain Coins. But I don't think the attribution was his. He probably got it from somewhere else.)
I think the "6" on the flip was his cost, or an old price. I paid a little more than that, as I recall- maybe $8-12. Not much, anyway. This would've been two or three years ago. I also bought some 1500s dated pieces, some nice XF+ with toning, which I flipped on the BST and did OK on.
I guess now that I have photos of it, this one is bound for eBay, but I might've kept it if it were a dated piece.
Got any attribution help for me before I cast it into the Bay of E?
Oh- and thanks again. This forum is terrific. I love how I can post something I think is pretty esoteric, and there's somebody here with answers in less than a day. Prior to my Internet traveling, some of my numismatic questions could take decades to learn the answer to.
around 1489-1490. I am not sure of the value. The 1600's are tougher especially
in nice condition. If dates on coins are of interest then Robert Levinson's book,
"The Early Dated Coins of Europe 1234-1500" is highly recommended. Very well
researched. I have been collecting these coins for 10+ years. My earliest piece
dates 1374. It was issued by the city of Aachen, Germany. I have over 140 different
coins dated before 1500. The Muslim issuing mints started dating their coins just
around 700AD. Byzantine coins have regnal dates, Roman numerals depicting the
year of reign. Example: III would indicate the third year of rule. You mentioned the
engraving to be crude on your coin; really not to crude considering size of coin and
lack of magnification at the time. 2 other dealers had large "hoardes" of denars at
different times. I bought the best pieces from each regardless of date. They now
reside in flips in 3 double row boxes. I hope this helps.
I am really more interested in dated pieces, so this one's off to Bronzemat for a quickie birthday gift.
Speaking of early dated coins, I already own the Levinson book and like it, though I have yet to own a Levinson-listed coin. I wish Levinson cut off at 1600 rather than 1500, though. Since Krause coverage doesn't begin until 1601, the 16th century is a big gap in my reference library. And that's precisely the century I'd be focused on if I ever decide to collect denars by date. Maybe Krause will come out with a 16th century volume someday. I thought I heard whispers of that a few years back.
I also wanna have a 1400s-dated goldgulden one day, with those funky 4s in the date. Maybe 1444, so it would have three of those funky early 4 numerals in a row.
Please do share some early dated coins with us if you can, Tibor. 140+ pre-1500 dated coins is quite impressive.
And I don't mean just denars, either. I want to see some of what else is in your boxes.
DPOTD-3
'Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery'
CU #3245 B.N.A. #428
Don
*sigh*
This is also something I would like to work on because it's early, the Madonna and child imagery is totally Medieval looking and they are little and fun and not crazy expensive. But now since LordM has started this thread, we are all wanting to look through a bag of 800 to find sweet sweet denars at rock bottom prices. So, so much for cheap.
*LordM, this would be a very opportune time to have a million of these things on the Bay or BST right now, lol.*
I'd love to go through a big bag of them, for sure.
For some reason, coins bearing early 4-digit dates in Arabic numerals have always interested me. I would love to have a 1400s-dated coin with an actual readable date sometime. But the early 1500s still interest me, too, and the availability and affordability of 16th century denars is what got me to wondering about collecting them by date.