Lot 120
120
LEIDEN -- SIEGE COINAGE -- GUILDER QUARTER 1574. Paper coin. Obv.: Rampant lion with sword and arms of Leiden. Rev.: LVG/DVNVM/BATAVO/RVM. ø c. 3 cm.
This coin was issued during the early part of the Eighty Years War (1568-1648) when the Spanish were holding siege around Leiden's dikes. Generally, siege coins were struck from citizens' silver plate and copper, church vessels, or anything that could be put to emergency use for money. At some point the decision was made to produce coins not from metal but from prayer books. Pages from these prayer books were torn out and cut into planchet-size circles and compressed with multiple pieces of paper and then stamped with coinage dies, followed by counterstamping many with the Holland coat-of-arms. This coin became the first European State-issued paper money.€ 150
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