THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

THE COLLECTOR SERIES
ample monetary records (1195-1572), occupied the
remainder.
In or about 1525, Albrecht, Margraf of Brandenburg,
having become Grand Master and seized the possessions
of the Order, was made Duke of Prussia under Polish
suzerainty; but in 1657 this territory vested abso-
lutely in Brandenburg, and so remained till 1701, when
Wilhelm III. assumed the crown of Prussia. It was
while he was Margraf, and in 1681, that, having
acquired a settlement on the coast of Guinea, he
made the maiden essay of the Prussians in colonising
it, and striking money for its use. His money as Mar-
graf is common, but as king (1701-1713) is peculiarly
scarce ; nor is that of his successor, above all the gold,
easily obtained.
The coins of Frederick the Great, except the in-
auguration ducat of 1740 and the thaler of 1750,
are abundant, and those of the later monarchs call
for no special comment. Numismatically speaking, the
changes in territorial distribution after the events of
1815 aggrandised Prussia at the expense of Saxony.
Silesia, Mansfeld, and Stolberg, of which the two latter
formed themselves into branches, were down to the end
of the last century, or early years of this, prolific sources
of monetary production. On Stolberg the stag, and on
Mansfeld St. George and the Dragon, were immovable
types. Both houses produced a distinguished soldier
in the Thirty Years" War; but the former lias to boast
the permanent literary claims of the two brothers whose
names are familiar in the German poetical annals of the