Where the mint masters in Bydgoszcz, Poland went wrong?- Sigismund III Vasa [解決]

Have a nice weekend colleagues.

    They brought me silver coins and as I examined and incorporated them I noticed a large imperfection on one of the coins. Coincidence I thought - however I remembered a colleague's recent post here: https://en.numista.com/forum/topic133707.html

*And so I'm interested in whether it's a die that is damaged by engraving full lines into the body of the die?

*What would such lines be made of?

*yes, if it were one or more imperfections, it is possible to understand the amount of coins minted per day with this coinage - isn't that strange, though?

A colleague's coin posted by:

and this is mine:

Another view:

this is under the microscope:

These are mine that I got yesterday:

N#136368

At first I thought it was damage by someone improperly cleaning the coins, however, these are protruding lines. A silver cube alone cannot do such damage (silver is softer than an iron cube)

Where the mint masters in Bydgoszcz, Poland went wrong?

Ivan

My only thought is that the mintmaster in Bydgoszcz had incentives for high output, but not high quality. 

Sigismund opened and then closed a lot of mints early in his reign.  By 1601, he had closed the Olkusz, Poznan, Wschowa (Fraustadt), Malbork and Lublin mints.  Bydgoszcz also closed in 1601, but was later re-opened.  

So, by 1614 when the production of this type began, only Bydgoszcz and Krakow were producing them, and we know that vast quantities were produced.  Maybe the die-cutters could not keep up with the production requirements, and worked very quickly?  Maybe the mintmaster was told to focus on output?  We also see that the larger orts produced at Bydgoszcz have low relief, and the dies appear to have been used longer than at Gdansk, where much more attractive orts were produced at the same time.

tdziemia

My only thought is that the mintmaster in Bydgoszcz had incentives for high output, but not high quality. 

 

I send greetings for a nice Sunday for the big pond.

Yes, they had to mint a lot of these coins every day - about 24 hours of continuous operation   ,, tdziemia,,

You know, I think it was a huge mess-there was no time to clean up. The size of the lines seems like "horse hair from the tail" to me-which stuck to the body of the lower coin die.

The upper punches of the coins were inspected and cleaned-and no one looked at the bottom (it wasn't nighttime and not enough light) artificial lighting work at that time was lousy.

I was looking for the assistants who worked there, their relationship to alcohol.😁

I found out tonight that the heads of the cash register were just taking turns:*Ended in office: Coin minted at the Bydgoszcz mint, marked Mikołaj Daniłowicz coat of arms of Sas, highest crown chamberlain in the years 1616-1624.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miko%C5%82aj_Dani%C5%82owicz

And he took the job: Hermolaus Ligęza 1624-1632 https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermolaus_Lig%C4%99za

Probably during the rotation, the regime was a little looser and a mess.

I don't know for sure, but I think it was after the mintmaster left: ,,Gabriel Gerloff,, -which went to the mint in ,,Těšín,,As a lover of Silesian coins, you will be interested in this - a good article about the mint master:

https://visitcieszyn.com/cs/posledn-t-nsk-mincmistr-gabriel-gerloff

Conclusion: Many changes and stormy years of wars and changes of personnel and state treasurers.

Huge demand for coins and non-stop minting -signed for poor quality.

But one very important thing:  The quality of silver was still at a very high level - there was no depreciation of the currency, the weight fit, so it was primarily about value and not about beauty.

Ahoj Ivan

I think Ligeza and Danilowicz were in the “headquarters” (as you say, king's chamberlain, or according to Gumowski, :"grossschatzmeiseter")

“In the trenches” at Bydgoszcz, the management changed from Hermann Rudiger (1608) to Erik Huxer (1614) to Konrad Brenner (1615) to JacobJacobson (1617), so maybe the stress on output was burning out these guys?

But also, the coinage was being debased during this period.  According to Gumowski, the specifications for the poltorak/dreipolker were:

Munzkommission of 1614:  1.54 grams at 0.469 (0.72 grams fine silver)

Munzkommission of 1619:  1.21 grams at 0.406 (0.49 gr. fine silver)

Munzkommission of 1623:  1.18 grams at 0.375 (0.44 gr. fine silver)

So maybe Mr. Jacobson lost his appetite to control the quality (or maybe as you say, too much piwo … or wodka … for the workers ).

1620-1623 was also the height of the Kipper and Wipper Zeit which is a interesting numismatic period.

https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kipper-_und_Wipperzeit
sorry its in German, not sure there is so mich info on this in english

apuking

1620-1623 was also the height of the Kipper and Wipper Zeit which is a interesting numismatic period.

 

Yes, that's why I was convinced in the first post that this coin has a high silver content.  Which was not common in these times and especially even older ones.

That is why in the Czech Republic these devalued currencies were called black money-simply the copper admixtures gave the coin a dark effect.

And yet a coin of high purity-purity of the metal is white (that's why it was called "white money" in the Czech Republic)

Although mine is also the result of using ,, ultrasonic bath- and concord preservation,,

I have more of these coins this year and of different qualities (I never do this with real ones) just for my own imitation of the Saint Gorazd Denarius.

I apply the patina there to make at least a little imitation of a period coin.

If there is interest, I can make an attempt to apply an artificial patina to a real coin (I mean like what you have all the artificial patinas in your collections and you think you have real patinas.

(Even if I risk getting beaten up again in the sandbox by the guys from Miami, Florida)

Ahoj Ivan