THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

THE COLLECTOR SERIES
century the money of Germany and the Netherlands,
and even Italy, with countermarks rendering it current.
Peter the Great lived to see the circulating medium of
his country placed nearly on an equality with that of
more westerly states, and his successors have certain ly
in this respect, so far as the fabric and workmanship
are concerned, maintained the standard. There are
many rare and little-known patterns of Peter himself,
Catherine I., Peter II., and other sovereigns of the
Russias, which have lately realised considerable amounts
at foreign sales. The rouble of Peter I. (1725) and
that of Catherine I. of same date, with head to left, are
considered scarce.
Of the Danubian Provinces, Moldavia, Wallachia,
Roumania, Bulgaria, Bosnia, and Servia, the numis-
matic annals have varied with their political vicissi-
tudes. Some of the money goes back to the eleventh
century, and much of it to the fourteenth. The early
coins of Bogdana bear, as a symbol or type, the mys-
tical bull's head, so common in Germany and in the
Baltic district. The fabric and style of the more
ancient coins of Bulgaria and Servia are Byzantine
the Servian currency of the fourteenth century is partly
copied from Greek models, both of the ordinary and of
the concave form, and partly follows the lines of the
Venetian grosso called matapan. Since 1867 these
states have been erected into autonomous governments,
with the exception of Bosnia, which remains under
Austrian jurisdiction.
A sufficient sketch of the monetary system of the
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