Coins and medals
The coin and medal collection comprises more than 20,000 objects covering a period from antiquity to the modern age, in which the Saxon coins and medals from the 14th to the 19th century take pride of place. They illustrate the origins and history of the Ernestine principalities, and in particularly the territory of Coburg.
The numerous dynastic connections of the dukes of Coburg are reflected in splendid medals in silver and gold. The many gold medals, mainly from Russia and England and weighing up to several hundred grams, are worth a special mention.
This coin commemorates the accession of Coburg to Bavaria in 1920 and the referendum of November 1919, in which annexation to Thuringia was rejected. In front of the Veste Coburg is the symbolic figure of Coburgia with the town’s coat of arms and the two referendum urns. One special feature of this particular medal is its matte surface and patina of the silver.
Only a few examples of this medal were struck in gold. It commemorates the entry of Duke Ernest I of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha into into Coburg´s renovated Ducal palace, the Ehrenburg, in 1826. Christoph Carl Pfeuffer of Suhl created the medal in the Berlin workshop of Gottfried Bernhard Loos.
On 31 July 1789, Prince Friedrich Josias of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld together with allied Russian troops beat the Osman army at the Battle of Focșani, in present-day Romania. This silver medal shows him at the head of his army with drawn sword, as well as a portrait of him with the Grand Cross of the Order of Maria Theresia, which he received after the battle from Emperor Joseph II.
Created in Gotha by Ferdinand Helfricht, this medal in gilded bronze commemorates the marriage between Queen Victoria of Great Britain and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha on 10 February 1840. The couple visited Coburg twice together, and even after Albert’s death Victoria returned to Coburg another five times.
This silver coin was struck in the reign of Ptolemy I (367/66-283/82 BC) in Alexandria. However, it shows the Greek goddess Athena and the portrait of Alexander the Great, under whom Ptolemy was originally a general. After Alexander’s death, Ptolemy founded a new dynasty in Egypt that ruled the empire on the Nile until the Roman conquest.
This medal struck in 1547 commemorates the death of Martin Luther the previous year. Made in the workshop of Hans Reinhart the Elder, it shows a portrait of the Reformer in old age and the “Luther rose”. Luther received a signet ring with this rose motif in 1530 at the end of his stay at the Veste Coburg, as a gift from the later elector of Saxony, John Frederick I.
This pair of coin dies for 1/6th taler coins from 1693 comes from the Coburg mint of Duke Albrecht III. The image on the rounded dies appears slightly oval, as they were used in a machine called a cylinder press. The coins, produced by a rotating movement, are slightly warped.
This pendant commemorates the British Naval Exhibition in London in 1891. Set in gold, it contains a piece of oak from the hull of the Victory, the flagship on which Admiral Nelson was victorious at Trafalgar. The inscription on the reverse refers to Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, who became the ruler of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1893.
This silver medal was struck on the occasion of the death of Pope Clement XI in 1721. It shows the deceased pope with the three-tiered papal crown, the tiara. The reverse shows a view of Rome with the Tiber and Castel Sant’Angelo. However, the medal was not made in Rome, but in Nuremberg, by Andreas Vestner.