Stick rider
Steckenreiter , also Steckenreiterklippe , is the popular name for a cliff (angular coin) of the imperial city of Nuremberg from 1650 to the main peace recession concluded within its walls on June 26, 1650 , with which the implementation provisions of the Peace of Westphalia were established. The cliff pays tribute to the settlement of the Thirty Years' War , which had ended two years earlier, and shows a boy with a hobby horse , while on the opposite side an imperial eagle with a Nuremberg breastplatecan be seen over five lines of writing. The so-called Steckenreiter often appears as a silver cliff. It is rare in gold, minted to the ducat weight .
Coin history
As an explanation for the depiction of a little boy with a hobby horse as an embossed image on the cliffs, Johann Christian Kundmann writes that after the conclusion of the Nuremberg Peace Execution Congress in 1650 the rumor was spread in Nuremberg that the emperor's representative, Lieutenant General Octavio Piccolomini , Duke of Amalfi , I promised to give a piece of silver the following Sunday to every child who would appear in front of his house with a hobby horse. When the count was told about the unusual gathering of children in front of his house, he is said to have made the silver stick tabs and later distributed them to the children.
Karl Christoph Schmieder , who also refers to Kundmann's Numi singulares , describes the character as the jubilee cliffs of the city of Nuremberg, which are called Steckenreiter. Schmieder explains the depiction of the boy riding the hobby horse on the embossing:
“When a peace festival was celebrated in Nuremberg because of the Peace of Westphalia, among other public merrymaking was the fact that over a thousand boys on hobby horses trotted to the apartment of the imperial ambassador, the Duke of Amalfi, to a loud screeching, in order to ask for a memory of peace, whereupon the duke had this cliff hit and split under it. "
The cliff was looked up several times afterwards, since, according to Schmieder, “is not that rare”. Schmieder only mentions the silver cliff in his statement. The golden straight rider was apparently unknown to him, which indicates the rarity of the gold strike.
To commemorate the Peace of Westphalia, the hobby horse riding still takes place in Osnabrück today . The custom is based essentially on the history of Kundmann, Schmieder et al. mentioned explanations of the special embossed image of the link rider or link rider cliffs. The story was taken up by the poets Clara and Emmy von Dincklage (* 1825; † 1891) in 1875. They moved the story of the Nuremberg children to Osnabrück.
Coin description
The straight rider of the imperial city of Nuremberg pictured above is a ducat-weight gold strike from the stamps of the silver cliff.
Gold stamps were fit for circulation as currency coins. But they were usually donative . These are coins or medals that were used as gifts. The golden cliffs were probably given as gifts to guests of the peace festival. The depicted ducat cliff can be described as freshly minted despite its age. The ducat was therefore never used as a means of payment.
The Steckenreiter, marked as a silver cliff with the same coin mark, are medals minted in large numbers, but represent a value of 10 Kreuzer . A variant of the stick rider is also known, which shows the boy without a cap.
The cliffs were minted without the mint master's mark or the stamp cutter's signature, measuring approx. 21 mm × 21 mm. The ducats weigh approx. 3.5 g, the silver cliffs approx. 3 g. They come from the Nuremberg Mint .
Image side
The side of the Steckenreiterklippe shows a little boy riding a Hobby Horse with a cap and a raised riding crop in his right hand. The year 1650 is stamped in two parts. The ornate edges of the cliff are inscribed PEACE GEDÄCHTNUS۰IN NURNB [erg]:
Writing side
On the writing side there is a five-line inscription: VIVAT / FERDINAND (us) / III: ROM (anorum): / IMP (erator): / VIVAT ( 9 stands for us ). The translation is: Vivat! Ferdinand III. always exalted Roman emperor , Vivat!
Above it is the crowned double-headed imperial eagle with the Nuremberg coat of arms on the chest.
Provenance
The rare ducat, a gold strike from the stamps of the Silberklippe on the Peace of Westphalia, is part of the collection of the painter and local researcher Ignaz Spöttl, who came to the Wien Museum from his estate in 1892 .
literature
- Helmut Kahnt: The great coin lexicon from A to Z. H. Gietl Verlag, Regenstauf 2005, p. 461: Steckenreiter
- Heinz Fengler, Gerd Gierow, Willy Unger: transpress-Lexikon Numismatics. transpress Verlag, Berlin 1976, p. 374: Steckenreiter
- Friedrich von Schrötter , N. Bauer, K. Regling, A. Suhle, R. Vasmer , J. Wilcke: Dictionary der Münzkunde , Berlin 1970 (reprint of the original edition), p. 657: Steckenreiter
- Karl Christoph Schmieder : Concise dictionary of the entire coinage ... , Halle and Berlin 1811, p. 438: Steckenreiter
Individual evidence
- ↑ Helmut Kahnt: Das große Münzlexikon von A bis Z. (2005), p. 461: June 26, 1650
- ↑ Helmut Kahnt: Das große Münzlexikon von A bis Z. (2005), p. 461: Steckenreiter
- ↑ Heinz Fengler, Gerd Gierow, Willy Unger: transpress-Lexikon Numismatics. (1976), p. 374: Steckenreiter
- ↑ Friedrich von Schrötter, ...: Dictionary of Coin Studies (reprint 1970), p. 657: Steckenreiter
- ↑ Helmut Kahnt: The large coin dictionary from A to Z. (2005), p. 461: Explanation according to Kundmann
- ^ Karl Christoph Schmieder: Concise dictionary of the entire coinage ... (1811), pp. 438–439 : Steckenreiter
- ↑ Clara and Emmy von Dincklage: The Hobby Horse Riders. In: Storybook for the Young (1875)
- ↑ Friedrich von Schrötter, ...: Dictionary of Coin Studies , p. 221.
- ↑ Helmut Kahnt, Bernd Knorr: Old dimensions, coins and weights. A lexicon. Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig 1986, licensed edition Mannheim / Vienna / Zurich 1987, ISBN 3-411-02148-9 , p. 383 ( Donative ).
- ↑ museum-digital: baden-württemberg: Nürnberger Steckenreiterklippe (10 Kreuzer in value)
- ^ Dukat, cliff on the Peace of Westphalia ("Steckreiter-Klippe"). Retrieved June 14, 2021 .