This months additions to my collection are items I purchased on my trip to Austria. The prices of items there were a tad bit expensive (read: very), so the amount of pieces I obtained were few. I did however manage to procure something I have been trying to get a hold of for a long time. So I think I will start off with that!
As you can see in the picture, these are prototype Euro coins for the UK. Now obviously as we all know the UK did not adopt the Euro, and with Brexit, we can safely say any chance of that happening in the future is infinitesimally small. These sets were created in 2002 by the International Numismatic Agency to showcase what British Euro coinage would look like, and another set was produced in 2004 with a Scottish theme to it. This set, being the 2002 one without the 5 euro coin, is only one of 20,000 made. Apart from showing Queen Elizabeth on the front (Golden Jubilee design), the designs on the reverse were picked to symbolise Peace, Commerce and Justice. Now the UK was not the only EU member country who do not use the Euro. Others such as Poland, Denmark, Sweden, the Czech Republic et al also have prototype sets like this floating around in collectors circles. I did see the set for Denmark, but due to the price was unable to acquire it. To be quite honest, it was secondary on my personal agenda over this one regardless. This set being more desirable to me now now that the UK has voted to leave the EU. A fact which renders a lot of the bumf on the back of the sleeve mute.
The next two items I purchase were two Austrian coins from the reigns of Maria Theresa and Franz Joseph I.
The coins themselves are nothing spectacular, both showing signs of wear and tear. With the 5 Corona coin of Franz Joseph being almost solid silver (which explained the 30 euro price tag on it). So why did I purchase these coins? More for the historical significance of the people represented on them than anything else.
Maria Theresa is important as being the only female ruler of Habsburg line, being the leading ruler of vast swathes of 18th century Europe, stretching from Italy in the South, to the Netherlands in the North, as well as numerous regions/countries/lands in central Europe as far East to central Romania. She enacted many financial and educational reforms which strengthened Austrian control in the region as well as try and bring it kicking and screaming into modernity. Something which she laid the foundations for, but wouldn’t bear fruit well until the late 19th century when it was implemented properly.
Franz Joseph I bears the title as Austria’s longest reigning monarch, as well as the second longest in Europe (missing out on the top spot to King Louis XIV of France by 4 years). During his reign he witnessed the oncoming of the industrial revolution, the formation of both Germany and Italy as countries, and the outbreak of the First World War. Surviving an assassination attempt in 1853 by a Hungarian nationalist he enacted a stance of harsher controls over Hungary and the other Balkan states under the Austrian crown. This fermented further dissent in the local populaces who were being ground under the chafing strap of Austrian authority, which eventually led to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 and the events which transpired afterwards. Franz Joseph died in 1916, and his successor Charles I saw the abolition of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and with it the monarchy itself.
Numismatic Exploits 