The
Lion Daalder series is one of the crudest of the crown-sized coins issued at that time, especially when you compare them to some of the
German masterpieces. But this really didn’t matter, as they were issued primarily as a trade coin, and not for domestic use, seeing as they were only .75% silver. During their heyday they were one of if not the primary international trade coin. They actually circulated quite extensively in the early US, as the Dutch controlled New Amsterdam (modern day
New York).
The coins are generally struck on nice full planchets. Clipping didn’t seem to be too significant an issue, although I’m sure it did occur. The designs and legends often suffer from striking weakness as there was a lot of metal that needed to be moved around. Even many of the “so called”
mint state pieces you see listed for sale show significant weakness in spots. I generally try to buy pieces with above
average striking details, but that’s just my personal preference.
John S. Davenport wrote numerous books on European crowns, generally broken out into date ranges. For example, the
Lion Daalders are found within three different volumes: European Crowns 1484 – 1600; European Crowns 1600 – 1700; and European Crowns 1700 – 1800.
I have a hardcopy of the 1600 – 1700 volume since that’s where the majority of the series lies. I have a copy of the pages of the 1484 – 1600 volume that pertain to the series. I don’t have anything for the series after 1700, partially because once you reach that timeframe, the coins become very
scarce or even prohibitively
rare, as they were “on their way out” as a coinage.
Delmonte published
his book, “The Silver Benelux”, in 1967. The book is in
French and English.
All of the books above can be a
bit pricey, hence the reason I bought only the one Davenport book, and I was able to buy a copy of
Delmonte’s book from LULU.com as a print-on-demand, for less than one half the
price of an original copy.
I just recently heard of another two volume book, written by D. Purmer and A. H. N. van der Wiel in 2006, titled: HANDBOEK VAN DE NEDERLANDSE PROVINCIALE MUNTSLAG DEEL 1 1573-1806. It is in Dutch, but I believe it includes a great amount of historical information about the Dutch mints, as the most recent coin I bought was described with their numbering scheme and include information such as the
mint location, Mintmaster’s name, and even the name of the die sinkers employed at the time.