1780 Thaler from Austria

So, I bought this last weekend at a coin show. It cost me $28.00. He told me it is .75 Silver.

What I want to know is it a restrike?

It has S.F. is that San Francisco?

Maria Theresia thalers were first struck in 1780 and continued to be struck with a fixed date at various places in significant quantities, following the same specifications, until this very day.

So most of the thalers are restrikes, and seeing the pristine state yours is in, it is also a restrike.

There are major and minor variations in the design and lettering. The site below lists all variants. I have recently spent six evenings to find out that the thaler I have is H49a. Enjoy your query…

https://www.theresia.name/en/index.html ;

S.F. is the abreviation of the once mint master Schoebl-Faby of the Günzburg mint, which continues to be used by the Vienna mint till date.

Thank-you so much for the info. Knowledge is power. Peace

ArnoV

Maria Theresia thalers were first struck in 1780 and continued to be struck with a fixed date at various places in significant quantities, following the same specifications, until this very day.

 

So most of the thalers are restrikes, and seeing the pristine state yours is in, it is also a restrike.

 

There are major and minor variations in the design and lettering. The site below lists all variants. I have recently spent six evenings to find out that the thaler I have is H49a. Enjoy your query…

https://www.theresia.name/en/index.html ;

 

S.F. is the abreviation of the once mint master Schoebl-Faby of the Günzburg mint, which continues to be used by the Vienna mint till date.

I love this coin, but not the re-strikes (as they are too common and hard to tell which year they are from, 1780-2024!), actually I don’t know for how long they were struck after 1780 and I don’t care.

1780 was the last year of striking of this Thaler not the first, the re-strikes were first struck in 1781 with the date not changing from 1780, they were re-struck as they were trusted around the world for being genuine silver of the correct weight and purity so they were often used as „trade dollars“ and that is why they continued to be struck and used in merchant trade. Now they just do it to make money I guess.

The first one was minted in 1746, although the design changed slightly like all coins until the 1773 coin. The easiest way to tell if it is an original or a re-strike from 1780 is the spelling of „AUST“ with a V on the re-strike „AVST“ (that original 1780 coin I have never found), but even the re-strikes with 1780 date and AVST spelling can be quite valuable, especially the earlier they were struck - after all a 1780 struck in 1803 is still 222 years old and would have still been used in trade. The problem is that it is very difficult to distinguish between a 1780 struck in 1803 or 1984 etc, there are differences but they require close examination and I guess it is something that is beyond most people’s memory capacity - and so now sellers will use the opportunity to sell something well above silver melt value to anyone who will take a chance, especially as they are real silver minted re-strike coins, with a 1780 date on them. I love looking at the reaction on a sellers face when I ask what the silver price is at the moment for one of these coins, because they often hesitate and think twice about saying „but it is from 1780!“

99% of them are restrikes and you can always tell looking at the word “Austria”. If the U is a V, then its a restrike - these coins were major currency in Ethiopia, Somalia, Yemen, Eritrea, Djibouti, Oman and some other poorer and less developed Arabo- African places.

They liked them as they were big and good silver (5/6 or 83.33%), which is actually quite low by British, German, Dutch and American Standards at the time (Over 90%). I read a book about them recently and most of them were minted by mints all over Europe and even today Vienna is minting several hundred thousand of them a year. It was considered a good coin, as the plump empress reassured them and its size and reliable silver content was reassurance against Ottoman coins, which were easily faked and contained lower amounts of silver until the mid 1800s (These areas were controlled by Turkey and they had serious inflation with billon coins at the time).

They were and still are used as jewellery and dowry coins too, many pictures survive of a Yemeni or Ethiopian girl wearing a headress or necklace made up of Maria Theresa Thalers and other silver coins (So finding holed ones is quite common too).

“AVST” at 3 oclock, is proof the coin is a restrike - original 1780s coins had it as “AUST”.

However unlike other restrikes and replicas, these restrikes are genuine coins, they have a frozen date of 1780 on them and its very hard to tell what era your coin may have been minted (I am not even sure if there is a system, except between original 1780 coin and all the restrikes, most of the restrikes are likely to have been struck between 1900 and 1950 though. Some like my 2 I doubt would be more than 10 or 20 years old as they have that new coin feel.

They are still real as these restrikes are struck using 83.3% silver and would still be accepted in Yemen, Eritrea etc.