Grünthal Mint

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The Saigerhütte Grünthal 1832. Until 1825 the "Pfennigmünze zu Grünthal" was located here

The Grünthal mint was set up in the "Althammer" of the Saigerhütte Grünthal in the Ore Mountains not far from Olbernhau during the tipper and wipper era in 1621 as a branch of the Dresden mint . After the end of the dump truck era and the return to the imperial coinage system , Elector Johann Georg I (1611–1656) had the coin closed in 1623. From 1752 to 1755, the hammer's capacity was used again for minting coins . During this period, the mint minted copper coins for the Kingdom of Poland . From 1804 until the final closure of the mint in 1825, all copper coinage for Saxony took place in Grünthal.

history

Tipper and luffing time

In the time of money falsification, the tipper and wipper era, the monopoly of the Dresden Mint was broken with the establishment of tipper mints. From 1621 to 1623, Elector Johann Georg I of Saxony had billon pennies minted on one side without a mint master's mark in the old hammer of the Saigerhütte Grünthal . The Grünthal mint was the only Saxon tipper mint that specialized in the minting of pennies. Another peculiarity was that the mint did not mint independently like the numerous other land and lease coins of the time of the tippers, but was subordinate to the Dresden mint master Heinrich von Rehnen. The hut had been owned by the Wettins since 1567 , which explains the overall management of the mint by the “Electoral Saxon Mint Master”. The clerk and shift foreman August Rothe had the pennies minted with the stamps cut in the Dresden mint . With the end of the tipper days in 1623, the Electorate of Saxony was once again minted according to the Imperial Coin Order , which Elector August (1553–1586) had joined in 1571. Georg I had the tipper mint closed in 1623.

Carl Christoph von Brandenstein was electoral chamber councilor and advisor to the elector. The minting of the tipper coins was his responsibility in Saxony. He suggested to the elector that the country could not get enough money from the Dresden mint. Numerous new land coins were created and leased at his order. Little is known about his work, as all too informative files were probably removed.

See also: Kippertaler

Copper coins for Poland

In connection with efforts to reform the Polish minting system, the old hammer's capacity was used again for minting coins from 1752 to 1755. For the Kingdom of Poland, the Saigerhütte minted Grünthal Szelagi ( shillings ) and Groszy ( groschen worth 3 shillings) with the bust of August III. (1733–1763) and the crowned coat of arms in a cartouche . The copper coins do not have a mintmaster mark . Since these denominations have also been struck in the Guben ( Gubin ) mint , near the Polish border at the time, since 1749 , it is not possible to reliably assign the coins to one of these two mints . Large quantities were minted in both mints. In 1753 alone it was around 25,000,000 shillings and 260,000 groschen. The minting of gold and silver coins for Poland took place in the specialized mint in Leipzig . When the Prussian armies of Frederick II occupied Saxony in the Seven Years' War in 1756 , the minting was stopped.

Relocation of copper coinage from Dresden to Grünthal

The electoral Saigerhütte supplied the plates for the production of copper coins to the Dresden mint until 1802. In 1803, the high transport costs led to an attempt to mint the copper denominations directly at the place of manufacture of the coin blanks. The first coins minted in Grünthal were threesomes without a mintmaster's mark with the inscription III / PFENNIGE / 1803 and the pfennigs minted shortly afterwards. The quality of the coins could not be distinguished from those minted in Dresden. As a result, the entire copper coinage was moved from Dresden to Grünthal in 1804. These were the above-mentioned pfennigs and threesomes as well as the heller minted from 1805 and the 4-pfennig pieces from 1808.

View of the "Althammer", the former location of the mint, in what is now the Saigerhütte Grünthal museum complex
In the "old hammer"

After the introduction of ring minting in the Dresden mint, the minting of the "Pfennigmünze zu Grünthal" was finally stopped in 1825 for technical reasons.

Head of the Grünthal Mint

ladder from to Mintmaster's mark comment
August Rothe 1621 1623 Hut clerk and shift supervisor
Johann Gotthelf at the end 1752 1755
Johann Ernst Croll 1803 1804 C. In 1803/1804 Samuel Gottlieb Helbig carried out the first minting with Croll's stamps as a Saigerhütten factor.
Samuel Gottlieb Helbig 1804 1813 SGH, H
Johann Gotthelf Studer 1814 1825 S. 1825 cessation of coinage

From 1804 to 1825 the coins were minted under the supervision of the Dresden mint masters Croll, Helbig and Studer.

Coins

The coins are evidence of minting in the Kipper period, copper coin production for the Kingdom of Poland and later copper coinage for the Kingdom of Saxony.

See also

literature

  • Lienhard Buck: The coins of the Electorate of Saxony 1763 to 1806 , Berlin 1981
  • Paul Arnold, Harald Küthmann, Dirk Steinhilber: LARGE GERMAN COIN CATALOG FROM 1800 TO TODAY , Augsburg 1997
  • Walther Haupt: Sächsische Münzkunde , Berlin 1974
  • ND Nicol, Marian S. More, Fred J. Borgmann: Standard Catalog of GERMAN COINS 1601 to present
  • Gerhard Schön: German coin catalog 18th century , Munich: Battenberg, 1984
  • Grünthal, Saigerhütte Grünthal, reference to Polish shillings . In: August Schumann : Complete State, Post and Newspaper Lexicon of Saxony. 3rd volume. Schumann, Zwickau 1816, p. 615.
  • Rudolf Lorenz: The coins of the Kingdom of Saxony 1806–1871 and the Grand Duchy of Warsaw 1807–1815 , Berlin 1968
  • Heinz Fengler, Gerd Gierow, Willy Unger: transpress Lexikon Numismatics , Berlin, 1976
  • Friedrich von Schrötter, N. Bauer, K. Regling, A. Suhle, R. Vasmer, J. Wilcke: Dictionary of Coin Studies , Berlin 1970 (reprint of the original edition from 1930)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lienhard Buck: The coins of the Electorate of Saxony 1763 to 1806 , Berlin 1981, p. 58
  2. ^ Paul Arnold, Harald Küthmann, Dirk Steinhilber: LARGE GERMAN COIN CATALOG FROM 1800 TO PRESENT , Augsburg 1997, p. 257
  3. ^ Walther Haupt: Sächsische Münzkunde . German Verl. D. Wiss., Berlin 1974, p. 133
  4. ↑ mcsearch.info: Schilling 1751, Guben or Grünthal
  5. ↑ Manfred Olding: Groschen 1754 H, Guben or Grünthal, H.-Cz. 2885, Kahnt 699.
  6. ↑ mcsearch.info: Pfennig 1808 H, minted in Grünthal
  7. ↑ mcsearch.info: King Friedrich August I., 4 Pfennigs 1808 H, Grünthal