Change nothing
For more than five hundred years the zecchino kept its weight, its fineness and its image. That stubbornness is exactly what made it the trading currency of the Mediterranean: whoever took one did not have to test it.
Silver Fürstengroschen Balthasar of Thuringia (1381-1407 | Knight in the Hundred Years' War)
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- Genuine Original: from the Middle Ages
- Short Minting Period: only 1393 to 1406
- Meissen Lion: and cross of lilies
- Genuine OriginalNo restrike, but over six centuries old
- Short Minting PeriodIt ended with the coin lord's death at Wartburg Castle
- Meissen LionCRVX in the cross of lilies was a silent code for money changers
Item No.: 2260702
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ShareMedieval original
Meissen groschenPrince's groschen of Balthasar of Thuringia
You are looking at the obverse.
Between the day this piece was made and the day you hold it there are roughly
650years
- Struck by hand
- Original, not a restrike
- 27 mm diameter
- 30 days right of return
Where it belongs
Seven coins, seven systems.
The Middle Ages had no world currency. What counted a day's ride away was a separate question, and anyone trading converted constantly. These seven pieces stand for seven answers to that.
621 to 907
Imperial China
China cast its money instead of striking it: molten bronze into moulds, the result a round piece with a square hole so a thousand of them could go on one string. In 621 Emperor Gaozu had the Kaiyuan Tongbao introduced and prescribed a weight for it that later became the Chinese unit qian. For almost three hundred years this piece stayed the standard.
8th to 9th century
Abbasid caliphate
From Baghdad ruled the greatest power of the day, and its silver dirham ran from Central Asia to Scandinavia. It carries no image, only script: creed, mint, year and ruler. Viking graves in Sweden are full of them, because trade reached down the Russian rivers all the way to the Baltic.
1099 to 1268
Crusader states
After taking Antioch in 1098 the new princes struck their own money, and it looks exactly like their position: a western denier, a cross, a helmeted head, and legends wavering between Latin and Greek. The money of a state that lay between two worlds and lasted less than two hundred years.
1284 to 1797
Republic of Venice
In 1284, under Doge Giovanni Dandolo, Venice introduced the gold ducat, later called the zecchino, at 3.545 grams of the purest gold medieval metallurgy could make. The Republic changed nothing about that standard until its end in 1797. Over five hundred years, the same weight and the same image: that is why the zecchino was good from Alexandria to Antwerp.
1371 to 1463
Rhenish gold gulden
In the Empire the archbishops of Cologne, Mainz and Trier struck alongside the Palatinate on the model of the Florentine florin and agreed their coins among themselves. Cologne put the apostle Peter on the front and the city arms on the back. The Rhenish gulden became the leading money of the Empire, the one prices were quoted in even when people paid in pennies.
1381 to 1407
Meissen groschen
The prince's groschen came from the silver of the Ore Mountains and was meant to hold against the Rhenish gulden: around twenty-three of them to one gulden. From 1396 it was struck with markedly less silver, and the blanks were boiled in tartar so the surface stayed white. From the outside the groschen looked the same as before.
Your piece
14th to 15th century
Hollow penny
The smallest denominator of daily life: a leaf of silver, struck on one side into a soft bed so the image stands proud at the front and stays hollow at the back. Schweidnitz in Silesia put a boar on it, the arms of the town. Fourteen millimetres, a fifth of a gram, and with it people paid for cloth, grain and carting.
Two answers to the same question.
New every year
In some regions hollow pennies were called in at regular intervals, in places twice a year: old money became void and had to be exchanged for new. The fee for that was often the mint lord's only tax income, and whoever came late lost part of their money. Money with an expiry date, six hundred years before the term.
Keeping it
Thinner than you think.
Medieval coins are not modern blanks. A hollow penny is a fifth of a gram of sheet silver and bends between two fingers, gold is soft enough for a fingernail to leave a mark, and the dark layer on silver and bronze is patina: grown over centuries, a sign of authenticity among collectors, and not recoverable once it is polished away.
Store flat, do not stack
Thin flans need support across their whole surface. A capsule or a coin frame, not a loose bag in which the sheet props itself up on an edge.
Hold it by the edge
Fingerprints contain acid and salt. Take the piece between thumb and forefinger at the edge, over a soft surface.
No products, no brush
No vinegar, no silver cloth, no ultrasound. If a crust has to come off, let a conservator do it, not the kitchen sink.
Silver Fürstengroschen of Balthasar of Thuringia – Earnest Money of a Knight from the Hundred Years' War
A small, irregularly hammered disc of silver, barely larger than a two-euro coin – and yet a witness to the late Middle Ages. The Fürstengroschen of Landgrave Balthasar of Thuringia was struck from 1393 onwards, at the state mint of Freiberg and at the mint of Sangerhausen, which was established specifically for this purpose. What you receive is not a modern restrike or a medal, but genuine legal tender from the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation that has survived for over six centuries.
The Coin's Issuer: A Wettin Knighted in 1369
Balthasar of Wettin, born in 1336 in Weißenfels, was no armchair prince. He rode alongside the English King Edward III into the Hundred Years' War and was knighted in 1369. Following the Chemnitz Partition of 1382, he received the Landgraviate of Thuringia, having previously been Margrave of Meissen. In 1391 he had the Sangerhausen mint built – its groschen were the first to be produced outside the state mint of Freiberg, fed by silver from Harz mining. When Balthasar died in 1406 at the Wartburg, the minting of the Fürstengroschen ended, and the Sangerhausen mint was closed. This is precisely what makes this type from the Meissen-Saxon groschen era so appealing to collectors: a clearly defined window of time, tied to the life of a single man.
Coin Design and Legend: Cross of Lilies, the Meissen Lion, and the Mysterious "b"
- Obverse: a cross of lilies within a quatrefoil; in the outer angles are the letters of the word CRVX (cross) – their arrangement served as a silent code for mint officials and money changers, not for the general public.
- Legend: BALTh(A) • DI • GRACIA • TVRING • LANG, meaning "Balthasar, by the Grace of God Landgrave of Thuringia".
- Reverse: the rampant Meissen lion facing left, with the mark "b" in front of it – the hallmark of the Fürstengroschen, established in the 1393 coinage agreement with Margrave Frederick the Warlike.
- Mint abbreviations: BALTh indicates Freiberg, BALThA indicates Sangerhausen.
- Catalogue reference: listed in the standard reference work by Gerhard Krug, "Die meissnisch-sächsischen Groschen 1338 bis 1500" (Berlin 1974).
Technical Data at a Glance
- Precious metal: silver, hammered coinage using medieval technique
- Face value: groschen (Fürstengroschen), originally referred to as a "half-fine groschen" upon introduction
- Gross weight: 2.85 g
- Diameter: 27 mm
- Country: Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation
- Year of issue, mint, fineness, and grade: various
The fineness varies considerably for historical reasons: to support the regional currency, the Fürstengroschen was initially valued at around 23 pieces to one Rhenish guilder – from 1396 onwards, coins were struck with a significantly reduced silver content, with the blanks boiled in tartar to give the surface a silvery-white appearance. This concealment technique is today a tangible piece of economic history in its own right.
On Condition: These Are Circulated Pieces – And They Look It
Darker patina, individual centring, small nicks, wear, and areas where the legend is more faintly struck: these are not flaws but biography. Every trace stems from hands that used these coins centuries ago to settle goods, freight, or debts. Since the year of issue, mint, and reverse variant may vary, the item delivered may differ from the image shown.
Please understand the photo in the shop explicitly as an example image: appearance, exact weight, and condition vary from piece to piece for historical reasons. You are purchasing an original.
A Collector's Piece with Substance – Why Silver Convinces
Silver has been a monetary and coinage metal for millennia, a symbol of wealth and prestige, and remains to this day a medium of exchange for smaller transactions. Unlike unbacked paper money, which rests solely on trust, it possesses intrinsic value: industry, electronics, solar and medical technology create constant demand, while the extractable supply remains limited. Anyone collecting historical silver coins combines numismatics with tangible real assets – making this groschen both a piece of history and a building block for inflation hedging and crisis protection.
Compared to later Wettin types such as the Schildgroschen or the Helmgroschen, which appeared from 1405 onwards with a higher silver content, the Fürstengroschen is the older, historically more charged representative – though often simpler in design and lower in silver content. Compared with modern fine silver bullion coins, it does not score points with its fine weight, but rather with its rarity, provenance, and storytelling power. A note for collectors and investors: in Germany, profits from the sale of silver are generally tax-free provided a minimum holding period of one year is observed. Precious metal endures across generations, is durable, liquid at any time, and can be passed down within the family – together with a story that ends at the Wartburg and continues in your collection. Shipping is carried out as insured value shipping.
Product depiction may differ from the final product.
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Silver Fürstengroschen Balthasar of Thuringia (1381-1407 | Knight in the Hundred Years' War)
139,00 €
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