West-Friesland, 1780, Duit.

[Arminius]

Netherlands, West-Friesland, 1780 AD.,
Duit (21 mm / 3,39 g),
Obv.: WEST / FRI / SIA / 1780 , a rosette between two dots, beneath inscription and date in 4 lines - .(rozet). daaronder WEST / FRI / SIA , in drie regels en het jaartal 1780.
Rev.: crowned arms of West Friesland (a shield with 2 facing lions walking left) within two laurel branches - gekroond wapenschild met hierin twee leeuwen boven elkaar, de leeuwen hebben hun kop 'en face' gericht, dat is tot de kijker gericht. Het wapen is aan beide zijden versierd met lauwertakken.
KM 145 ; WES. 135 ; V.76.7 ; PW 3014 ( http://www.duiten.nl/westfriesland.htm ) .

Not a very special coin for shure - but a nice small change full of history that touched the hands of many common people.

Trying to fix the issue i found this very elaborate site helping me to complete the catalogisation:

http://www.duiten.nl

Maybe it´s useful for those who didn´t know the site.

Regards

[Figleaf]

Quite a nicely preserved coin and there is no such thing as an uninteresting coin.

The successful revolt of the Northern Netherlands against Habsburg rule brought about some complications in the field of coins. One of the complaints of the rebels was that the Habsburgs had trampled on ancient rights and privileges. Quite true, as they tried to modernize the monetary standard. However, the Republic could hardly be seen following the Habsburg example. As a consequence, medieval minting rights were respected and the Republic had many more mints then necessary. Some (e.g. Groningen and Leeuwarden) were closed for long periods of time, while others were repeatedly bribed to close.

The towns of Hoorn, Enkhuizen and Medemblik all had such old rights, but the mighty province of Holland, controlled by the city of Amsterdam, wanted a single Holland mint, in Dordrecht. A compromise was reached in 1580: Hoorn, Enkhuizen and Medemblik were allowed to have one mint, changing location from time to time. In reality, the mint was under the complete control of Holland.

Your coin was struck in Enkhuizen. You can see the Mint in Google maps or Google Earth at street level, by going to "Westerstraat 125, Enkhuizen, Netherlands". The gable is richly decorated and the building is across from one of the major churches of Enkhuzen.

As you can see, the last two digits in the date are not well aligned with the first two. In fact, the copper for this coin was bought in 1779. Mintmaster Pieter Buijskes must have thought he could start making coins in 1779, because although duit pieces are known with the date 1779, there are 1780/79 overdates. Something must have gone wrong, causing a delay. I think the die that struck your coin was produced without the final two digits. These were added later, probably in the first months of 1780, as no coins dated 1781 are known.

Peter

[statmatics]

Would it be ok, Arminius, for me to use your duit image on the CoinQuest web site? It is such a nice looking example. Please let me know. You can see my proposed page at this link: http://coinquest.com/cgi-bin/cq/coins?main_coin=15222. Thanks, Paul Richards, CoinQuest, Melbourne, FL USA