Very rare variety with bust with Order of the Holy Spirit, initials HD Hans David Lauer in ligature.
In the catalog of Jaroslaw Dutkowski and Adam Suchanek "Corpvs Nvmmorvm Civitatis Thorvnensis" marked with a rarity grade of R5, although this does not coincide with the auction market.
Onebid's first listing for this particular variety.
A select piece with the highest listing in the NGC registry.
An item virtually unheard of in the trade.
Highly recommended!
At the beginning of the reign of John Casimir there was an ambitious attempt at monetary reform (1650). The circulation of foreign money was banned and the issuance of good money of its own began. It was then that copper shekels (wide) first appeared. The assumptions of the reform proved unrealistic so it was quickly withdrawn. Meanwhile, in Lithuania, which did not feel obliged to implement the 1650 reform (its representatives did not participate in the work of the commission), a parallel reform was introduced, based on other principles. In view of the Moscow invasion, the Vilnius mint worked only in 1652-1653. In turn, under the conditions of the Swedish Deluge, an important episode in the history of Polish minting was the launch of a makeshift crown mint in Lviv (1656-1657). The monetary relations of the Commonwealth tried to put in order the ordinance of 1658. The most notable for the period of the reign of Jan Kazimierz were the issues of subvalue money: small copper crown and Lithuanian shekels (so-called boratins) minted in the number of about 2 billion pieces, and zlotys (so-called tymfs), with an official value of 30 pennies - more than twice the actual silver content of the coin. Of the municipal mints in the period in question, there were mints in Gdansk, Elblag and Torun. John Casimir also exercised his minting rights as Prince of Opole and Racibórz (three-crore orts were minted at the Opole mint).
During the time of Jan Kazimierz, orts were minted at nine mints: five crown mints (Bydgoszcz, Wschowa, Poznan, Krakow, Lviv), a Lithuanian mint (Vilnius) and three city mints (Gdansk, Torun, Elblag). The most abundant minting production was developed in Cracow and Bydgoszcz. In terms of iconography, on the other hand, the mints in Wschowa and Lviv stood out. The former, due to the depiction of the king in ancient armor and with a laurel wreath on his head (instead of a crown), the latter due to the primitivism of the drawing associated more with folk art than with the activities of the state mint. Lithuanian orts were minted only in 1664. Of the city orts, the rarest and - consequently - the most desirable to collectors are the Elblag orts. The first issues of John Casimir's orts were based on the 1650 orts. The coins were minted from 14th-karat silver, weighed an average of 5.607 g and contained 4.906 g of pure bullion. In 1654, the standard of the orta was lowered slightly. At that time, the sample of silver was set at XI lute, the weight of a single piece was set at 6.726, and the content of pure silver was to be 4.626 g. In 1656, there was another change - respectively, the sample of silver was set at XI of the lats, the weight was set at 6.308 grams, and the pure silver content was set at 4.337 grams. This was not the last change in the standard of the orta. As of 1657, the following values were in effect: sample of XII lavs, weight - 5.312 g, pure silver - 3.984 g. The last change was brought by the Ordinance of 1658 (the most durable of Jan Kazimierz's legal acts relating to minting). It adopted for the orts a silver sample of X lows, an average coin weight of 6.308 g and pure silver content of 3.943 g.
