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

334 The Coins of Europe
Holy Roman emperors from Ferdinand I.,
brother of Charles
V., to Leopold II. (1521-1792); particularly the thalers
and double thalers of Ferdinand (of which considerable
numbers have been recently found), Rodolph II., Leopold I.
and Claudia de' Medici with their busts accollated ; Joseph
I.,
Francis I.
(struck at Augsburgh, 1745), and Maria
Theresa. In addition to the ordinary currency of the lastnamed
sovereign, we have not only that for the provinces
and dependencies, but the ubiquitous thaler of 1780, which
is
accepted in China, Abyssinia, and Ashantee, and occurs
countermarked with Chinese characters,
1
and the beautiful
jubilee piece of 1888, produced under the auspices of the
Numismatic Society of Vienna. Collectors should be aware
that there are two varieties of this noble thaler, one with a
plain, the other with an inscribed edge. The coinage of
Francis Joseph, which goes back to 1 848, of which year
there is, however, a coinage of his uncle and predecessor
Ferdinand, has accumulated into a voluminous assemblage
of types and denominations, among which we may cite the
2O-kreutzer piece of 1852 with the head to left.
In copper Austria lagged far behind her neighbours and
contemporaries, and for the arch-duchy and empire appears
to have possessed nothing prior to Maria Theresa. The
employment of this metal to any appreciable extent began
in i 800, when we have a series of 6, 3, I, ^, and \ kreutzer.
There are subsequent issues of 30 and 15 kreutzer, 1807, as
Emperor of Austria (money of necessity), of ^, ^, I, and 3
kreutzer, 1812; of \, \,
and I
kreutzer, I 8 6 1 of 2 kreutzer
(of large, thick fabric), 1848; of \, \, I, 2, and 3
;
kreutzer, 1851 of
; 4 kreutzer, 1861, and doubtless others
intermediately. At present, the resort to bronze has become
a regular institution, and since 1858 the Austrian silver
florin has been computed as = 100 kreutzer, in lieu of 60,
according to the old standard.
The Austrian Tyrol, which was united to the arch-duchy
in the person of Maximilian I. in 1496 by the death without
issue of Sigismund, Margraf of Elsas and Count of the
1
It is periodically restruck from the old dies for commercial use.