W. C a r e w H a z l i t t Coinage of the European Continent

Descriptive Outline of the Coinages of Europe 305
1810 or 1812, especially the gold, are scarce. It may be
of service to the collector to mention the rich assemblage of
thalers of Wurtemburg in the three portions of the Reinmann
Catalogue, 1891-92. The numerous mints of the
Counts of Hohenlohe, of whom there were different branches
(Neuenstein, Langenburg, etc.), have bequeathed to us some
excellent specimens, particularly of the thaler, not in the
Reinmann Catalogue, during the seventeenth century. The
small uniface pieces belong to the era of the Thirty Years' War.
This ancient and historical domain, which existed as a
duchy from the sixth century, and underwent various
modifications and redistributions at successive
Bavaria. . . . . .
.,
epochs, is associated, numismatically speaking,
with a long series of imperial and ducal coins of the denier
class, commencing with the tenth century and with an
unusually important body of what may be termed external
coinage, arising, in the first place, from the Palatinate of the
Rhine, and secondly from numerous seigniorial, municipal
or urban centres, of which we must content ourselves with
naming Augsburgh, Baireuth, Bamberg, Dillingen, Fugger,
Heidelberg, Ingolstadt, Kempten, Landshut, Leuchtenberg,
Lindau, Memmingen, Miinchen (or Munich), Niirnberg,
Regensburg (or Ratisbon), Spire, and Wiirzburg. The early
rise of these and other townships within the duchy into
prominence and power tended to reduce the electors of
Bavaria to the rank of grand feudatories under the empire ;
and to the numismatic student the productions of the
subordinate mints are apt to be of at least equal interest
with those of the ducal moneyers. From the sixteenth
century, however, the coinage of the electorate began to
assume considerable importance and to develop great
artistic merit ;
and the thalers especially, from the reign of
Albert III. (1550-79), are to be particularly commended to
notice. There are very beautiful examples of Maximilian
Emmanuel (1679-1726), Carl Theodor (1777-99), an d
Maximilian Joseph (1799-1825), and a curious series of
Ludwig I. (1825-48). Probably the chefs d'ceuvre of the
Bavarian mint are the heavy gold piece of Maximilian 1.
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