Gottlieb Wüthrich Collection

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The Gottlieb Wüthrich Collection was one of the most comprehensive collections of Swiss coins ever to be auctioned. It was dissolved from November 25th to 27th, 1971 at the Münzen und Medals AG, Basel.

Collector

The collector Gottlieb Wüthrich (1879–1946) had worked for the Oerlikon machine works since 1898 , and in its London branch since 1899 , of which he was director from 1921 until his death.

In addition to his job, Gottlieb Wüthrich became interested in local history and coins from an early age. One point of contact for him was his childhood friend Jakob Wiedmer , who later became director of the Bern Historical Museum . Even though Wüthrich had already collected coins during his school days, he did not begin his actual collecting activity until 1917. His love was not only for coins, but also for the Swiss coats of arms and early book printing, especially by the first Bernese book printer Matthias Apiarius . Wüthrich was lucky enough to be able to build his collection of coins at a time, came in numerous highly important collections on the market, the collection Wunderly , the collection Bachofen and the collection Princely Prince Bergisches Cabinet to Donaueschingen . Because of the economic crisis, the prices for coins were very low, so that Wüthrich was able to secure a number of extremely rare, particularly beautiful pieces. He even managed to acquire entire collections, such as the Robert Käppeli collection of Swiss coins from the Middle Ages . Wüthrich worked closely with various coin dealers to build up the collection, such as Leonard Forrer sr., Who headed the numismatic department of the Spink & Son company . Wüthrich was represented by the Swiss collector Felix Blatter at the major Frankfurt auctions in the interwar period.

While the coats of arms were sold immediately after his death and the prints of the Apiarius were given to the Swiss Gutenberg Museum as a deposit, the coin collection remained in the family's possession until most of it, with the exception of the mintings from Bern and Graubünden, was held by the Münzen und Medaille AG in 1971 Basel was auctioned. The Bern coins from the Wüthrich Collection were auctioned in Zurich in 1984.

Pieces of the collection

The Wüthrich Collection contained coins that were minted in Switzerland and southern Germany, especially in the Lake Constance area. He started with the Celtic coinage . A special focus were medieval bracteates , whereby he was not limited to the area of ​​today's Switzerland, but collected all Swabian-Alemannic pennies of the Middle Ages in the historical context. This included the following areas (in the order of catalog 45 of the Münzen und Medaille AG): Basel (city and diocese), Count von Pfirt, Colmar, Freiburg im Breisgau, Rappenmünzbund , Bern, Friborg, Neuchâtel, Solothurn, Burgdorf, Lucerne, Uri , Schwyz, Zug, Zofingen, Laufenburg, Rheinfelden, Todtnau, Villingen, Diessenhofen, Laufenburg, Tiengen, Schaffhausen, Zurich, Konstanz, Biberach, Kempten, Lindau, Montfort, Ravensburg, Reichenau, Rottweil, Sankt Gallen, Überlingen, Ulm, Weingarten and Augsburg.

Particularly noteworthy is the extremely rare Bracteate from Diessenhofen , which was minted in the last third of the 13th century, the St. Shows Dionysus from the front, an extremely unusual bracteate from Zurich, which was created at the same time, and shows the city saints Felix and Regula between the crescent and star, as well as a bracteate from Biberach, around 1220, with a lion going to the right, in which it should be a heraldic animal depiction of the Lake Constance area.

Another focus was the coins and medals of the cantons and imperial cities with special consideration of the home canton of Bern. Gottlieb Wüthrich was particularly interested in gold coinage, even if silver coinage is represented in its most important, especially early and impressive pieces. Small coins, on the other hand, are completely absent from the collection.

auction

The following were auctioned in Basel in 1971:

  • Zurich with some extremely rare gold guilders from the first half of the 16th century as well as a complete series of half ducats from the 17th century and a large series of double ducats , ducats and half and quarter ducats from the 18th century.
  • Lucerne with some extremely rare large silver coins from the second half of the 16th century.
  • Original cantons, especially the thaler without a year, minted between 1551 and 1560, the three estates Uri, Schwyz and Nidwalden with the double eagle on the front, St. Martin on the back.
  • Glarus, with the rare Schützentaler from 1847.
  • Zug, with the rare Schneckentaler from 1565 and the rare Engeltaler from the same year.
  • Friborg
  • Solothurn, with some extremely rare gold coins from the end of the 18th century to the first quarter of the 19th century, including a ducat in 1768, a double doubloon in 1797 and 1798 and a doubloon in 1813.
  • Basel, with the extremely rare gold guilder from 1493 and 1516.
  • Schaffhausen, with the extremely rare gold guilder from 1622.
  • Appenzell, Sankt Gallen, Aargau, Thurgau, Ticino
  • Vaud, with the probably unique Ecu de 6 Livre from 1793, minted in Paris.
  • Geneva and Mulhouse

The collection also contains clergy and secular lords as well as cities on Swiss territory, such as Beromünster , Einsiedeln, Fischingen, Lausanne, Muri, Rheinau, Sion, Gruyère, Brugg, Laufenburg, Vevey and Zofingen.

literature

  • R. Wegeli: Obituary for Gottlieb Wüthrich. In: Swiss Numismatic Rundschau 33, 1947, pp. 55–56 (full text) .
  • Auction catalog Münzen und Medaille AG, Basel 45 (1971) Gottlieb Wüthrich collection with a detailed description of the collector's activities.
  • Gottlieb Wüthrich Collection: coins and medals from Bern. Important special collection with many rarities from numerous well-known collections such as Iklé, Grossmann, Abt, Bachofen, Wunderly v. Muralt, Vicomte de Sartiges etc. Auction 14, Wednesday, November 7, 1984 in the Hotel Carlton Elite, Zurich. Spink & Son Numismatics, Zurich 1984.