Hello everyone,
I hope you're all doing well. Recently, I came across this coin. It is an example of an anomalous Grosz with the date of 1755 minted during the Seven Years' War by Prussian authorities. It is an interesting piece both historically and numismatically.
I'll provide a bit of historical background to these coins. In 1755, original Grosz coins were minted in Saxony (Leipzig, Gubin, Grünthal mint, etc). After minting stopped, Saxony did not destroy the dies properly, which resulted in Prussians getting hold of them. This way they were able to create counterfeits (with original dies and very similar dies they replicated afterwards) of these coins, which devalued the Polish Złoty.
There are a lot of varieties of these anomalous Grosz coins. And, some of them still haven't been found. So, this is why I ask you to help me.
The main reference book for these coins is the ‘Chałupski’ coin catalogue, but I only had limited access to it (there was a shortened, free, part of it available online). I am not sure if my coin could be a unique variety.
I'll compile all information about it here:
Date 1755
AUGUST (instead of AVGVST as on real coins, main indicator of it being a Prussian counterfeit. The other indicator is the size of the letters. An AVGVST, but abnormally big, is also anomalous)
Tiny ‘3’ below the emblem
Giant leaves on the shield
Shield has a roughly trapezoid shape with the top being wider than the bottom.
And, main problem:
Dot between SA and X (looking like ‘SA•X’)
Photo:
I tried looking at auction records for this variety. Unfortunately, I only found one, which didn't really match. But, that one was described as basically unheard-of. Here is the link:
(The page can be translated into English and a few other languages)
There are a lot of differences, mainly the letters and the shape of the shield.
So, I only have one question. Is this a unique anomalous variety or does anyone know of another one minted by the same pair of dies?
Numista page for the coin:
Thank you in advance!
(This turned out to be quite long...whoops)