THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

THE COLLECTOR SERIES
sparingly in gold and copper, but is very plentiful in
silver, and of every gradation of art, from a mere piece
of metal foil without any type, to comparatively fine
work with well-executed portraits and regular legends.
The bracteate was spread over a very extensive area
North and South Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, Poland,
Switzerland, Northern Netherlands, Lombardy, &c.
There was a modification of it, or semi-bracteate pro-
duction, struck under the Lombard kings and the
Emperors of the West at Milan, Pavia, Lucca, Mantua,
and other points down to the twelfth century. The
subjects introduced on the face of the bracteate proper
are innumerable, but they seem to be, in the case of
those of later date, copies of ordinary coins rather
than prototypes. That of the twelfth century of
Mayence, of large module and superior independent
work, with an inscription (see Hazlitt, " Coins of
Europe," p. 186-187), is uniface and purely bracteate
in character. A few present themselves without any
type.
Brass, first, .second, and third—The three normal
divisions of the Roman bronze or copper currency.
But in some of the reigns irregular sizes or dimensions
often occur, and the weight of pieces in this metal
was rendered uncertain and arbitrary by the occasional
employment of thicker flans, the prototype of the
modern European piedfort. (Comp. Minimi.)
Breite-groschen, j)fenn'nig\ or thaler—The widespread
type, as distinguished from the dick or thick.
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