Prague groschen

It is a silver coin with on the obverse the legend DEI GRATIA REX BOEMIE ("By the grace of God the King of Bohemia") and on the reverse GROSSI PRAGENSES ("Prague groschen").

Minting of this coin started around 1300 after silver mines had been discovered in Kutná Hora (German: Kuttenberg) during the reign of the Bohemian king Wenceslaus II.

King Wenceslaus II invited the Italian lawyer Gozzius of Orvieto to create a mining code Ius regale montanorum which was also partly a reform of the coinage.

In documents of the era, like e.g. the Peace of Thorn (1411), large amounts of money often were given in more convenient unit, called in Latin sexagena (= threescore) of Prague groschen, which equals to Czech term kopa = 5 dozen = ½ small gross = 60.

After the opening of new silver mines in Jáchymov (German: Joachimsthal) the new currency named Joachimsthaler, in Bohemia known as tolar, gradually came in use.