Goat finches

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A Katterfinken is a Heller that was minted in the city of Görlitz in the 15th century, also called Görlitzer Heller in literature .

Katterfinken, above in an older shape with a rectangle on the obverse

On the obverse it bears the Gothic letters gor or GOR (for gorelic / Görlitz), on the reverse the Bohemian Wenceslas crown . These characters can look different depending on the edition and can also be framed differently: with a cord or in a rectangle. The size is 13-15 mm, the weight about 0.35-0.40 g. The Görlitz numismatist Rudolf Scheuner wrote in 1892 that after examining around 800 specimens, the weight was between 0.22 and 0.57 g, but mostly between 0.40 and 0.45 g. The representation of the crown is just as different, sometimes wide and low, sometimes high and narrow.

Initially, 333 silver was minted, but soon only 250 fine, in 1465 still 218 fine, then 188 fine. It is known that the fineness was getting worse. In the end, these were embellished with ample copper surcharge, reddish coins by means of white boiling .

Originally the Görlitzer Heller were called Katter s inken. The term Katter f inken came up later (presumably due to a reading error in which the long s in Gothic print was confused with “f”). "We can no longer clarify the meaning and origin of these terms today."

The letter sequence of GOR is very tight for some years or editions. In this composition, some Czech historians see a big "W" as a tribute and reference to the King Vladislav .

2 hangers were worth 1 putschänel (“an old Bohemian silver coin from around 1550”), 6 a kreuzer , 360 a guilder .

literature

  • Walther Haupt : Saxon coinage. VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1974, text volume page 79, picture volume page 51
  • Hugo von Saurma-Jeltsch : The Saurmasche coin collection of German, Swiss and Polish coins , Transpress Reprint; Description: Page 5 / No. 207, picture part: III / picture 92

Footnotes

  1. ^ Rudolf Scheuner : The coins of the city of Görlitz. In: Neues Lausitzisches Magazin , Görlitz 1892, pages 165-175, here p. 168 ( digitized version ).
  2. ↑ Franz Pubitschka : Chronological history of Bohemia. Prague 1798, Volume 6, Part 2, Page 516 ( digitized in the Google book search).
  3. ↑ Carl Christoph Schmieder : Concise dictionary of the entire coinage for coin lovers and business people. Halle and Berlin 1811, page 363 ( digitized in the Google book search).