Thaler
A thaler or taler (/ˈtɑːlər/ TAH-lər; German: Taler [ˈtaːlɐ], previously spelled Thaler) is one of the large silver coins minted in the states and territories of the Holy Roman Empire and the Habsburg monarchy during the Early Modern period.
A thaler size silver coin has a diameter of about 40 mm (1+1⁄2 in) and a weight of about 25 to 30 grams (roughly 1 ounce).
The word is shortened from Joachimsthaler, the original thaler coin minted in Joachimsthal, Bohemia, from 1520.
The development of large silver coins is an innovation of the beginning Early Modern period.
The largest medieval silver coins were known as groat (German Groschen), from denarius grossus or "thick penny".
Even these coins were increasingly debased due to the Great Bullion Famine of the 15th century which occurred for several reasons including continued warfare and the centuries-long loss of silver and gold in indirect one-sided trades importing spices, porcelain, silk and other fine cloths and exotic goods from India, Indonesia and the Far East.
Italy began the first tentative steps toward a large silver coinage with the introduction in 1472 of the Venetian lira tron in excess of 6 grams, a substantial increase over the 4-gram gros tournois of France.
The engravers, no less affected by the Renaissance than were other artists, began creating intricate and elaborate designs featuring the heraldic arms and standards of the minting state as well as brutally realistic, sometimes unflattering, depictions of the ruler (monarch).
In the Kingdom of Bohemia, then ruled together with Hungary by Louis II of the Jagiellonian dynasty, a guldiner was minted— of similar physical size but slightly less fineness—that was named in German the Joachimsthaler, from the silver mined by the Counts of Schlick at a rich source near Joachimsthal (today Jáchymov in the Czech Republic) where Thal (Tal) means "valley" in German.
In the 17th century, some Joachimsthalers were in circulation in the Tsardom of Russia, where they were called yefimok (ефимок) – a distortion of the name Joachim.
Under the new Imperial Minting Standard (Reichsmünzfuß) it weighed 1⁄8th a Cologne Mark of silver or 29.232 g, and had a fineness 0.9375.
The type continues to be popular throughout the 18th century, culminating in detailed city panoramas rendered in one-point perspective.
Some of these coins reached colossal size, as much as sixteen normal thalers, exceeding a full pound (over 450 g) of silver and being over 12 cm (5 in) in diameter.
[3] Eventually the term was applied to numerous similar coins worth more than a single thaler.
The Spanish Netherlands and the independent Dutch Republic has had a history of minting large silver coins separately from the rest of the Holy Roman Empire.
With the growing popularity of the German reichsthaler, however, the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands had to follow up with their own Dutch rijksdaalder in 1583, of weight 29.03 g (448 grains) and 0.885 fineness, and featuring an armored half bust of William the Silent.
As a bullion entrepôt of the period, the Netherlands produced reichsthalers for Germany and Scandinavia, and exported leeuwendaalders to the Levant and the Ottoman Empire.
The rise of German and Spanish dollars in 16th century European trade lessened the demand for French silver francs and testoons.
Finally, in 1795 the French franc was established, with the 5-franc coin of 25.0 g, 90% fine silver being closest in size to the thalers used elsewhere.
Some old countermarked thalers circulated as emergency coinage in Germany during the inflationary period following its defeat in the First World War.
The Maria Theresa taler became the de facto currency of the Ethiopian Empire in the late 18th century, with the Ethiopian birr introduced at par with this taler, and it continued to be in use into the 20th century in the Horn of Africa, Eastern Africa, India and throughout much of the Arabian Peninsula.
By the mid-19th century the thaler (or reichsthaler, rigsdaler) was still the currency unit used in the North German Confederation and Scandinavia.
Henceforth thaler-sized silver coins would be minted as bullion or numismatic pieces, among them: Unrelated to specific coins, the name of the thaler survives in various modern currency names, in the form dollar in twenty-three currencies used in countries including Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand and the United States of America, and also in the Samoan tālā and the Slovenian tolar (before adoption of the euro).
