Coin very impressive and beautiful in appearance, but with engraver's improvement of the details of the lion, crosses of Gdansk, moustache and royal eyebrow (edit 31.01.2025).
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Having a Sobieski thaler in the collection is ennobling, as the entire reign of Lev Lehistan left us with only two such issues.
The first was the crown thalers without a date, the minting of which is associated with the Vienna Victory. Extremely rare today, the proof of which we had at our 20th auction(sold for 442,500 zlotys). The second took place in 1685.
These very rare numismats are the last thalers of Gdansk. A beautiful buckle closing the long period of thaler coinage by the main commercial city of the Republic. Being the work of an outstanding medalist, a master of his era, Jan Höhn the younger. At the time, he most likely prepared one pair of stamps, with which a small batch of thalers was minted, as indicated by their sparse quotations today.
But why was it decided to issue thalers in Gdansk after so many years of hiatus? An interesting theory is put forward by Sergey Stube: "King John loved Danzig, and the royal couple often visited the city. The inspirers of the creation of this issue were probably the city councilors. It was a good custom to give gifts to the king, including a clinker coin with the monarch's likeness. Gifts (or rather bribes) went a long way in securing royal favor in obtaining privileges or assigning concessions."
In practice, the only attainable coarse coin of John III Sobieski.
