W. C a r e w H a z l i t t Coinage of the European Continent

Descriptive Outline of the Coinages of Europe 329
Kronungsthaler, 1701.
Magdeburger thaler, 1701.
Thaler, 1702, 1703, 1704.
Gulden, 1704.
Thaler, 1705.
\ Thaler, 1707.
Thaler, 1711.
His immediate successor, Frederic William I.
(1713-40),
occurs somewhat more freely on coins, and we meet with
the copper solidus, borrowed from Poland, with Solidus
Regni Pruss. The experiment, however, does not seem to have
outlived the reign, and Frederic II.
(1740-85) introduced
the pfenning and its multiples. There could be no difficulty,
when the art of engraving on metal was so \vell understood,
in producing satisfactory work, and the money both of
Frederic II. and his father is alike excellent, while the latter,
and the Prussian currency generally henceforth, are plentiful,
although it is believed that about the period of the Seven
Years' War large quantities of copper groschen were imported
from England (? Birmingham) into Northern Germany,
and the state of the coinage in the Fatherland down to recent
times continued to be worse than in any part of the Continent.
But attention should be drawn to the rare pattern thaler
of 1750, with the head laureated and the bust in armour,
and below, in cursive characters, Vive le
Roy. The reverse
exhibits the crowned eagle, with trophies in sunlight.
The province of Posen or Bydgost, subsequently a grandduchy,
contained within it,
from at least the thirteenth
century, several mints under Polish control or in
the employment of that state. Of these some
account is
given elsewhere. Posen fell, on the partition of
Poland, to the share of Prussia, was annexed to the Saxon
grand-duchy of Warsaw by Napoleon, and reverted to its
former masters in 1815. A 3 -groschen piece of 1816 of
Prussian fabric may be part of the earliest issue after the
restoration by the Treaty of Vienna.
A considerable share of the Saxon territory, constituting
parcels of the kingdom of Prussia and the present German
Empire, was lost by the adherence of the last Elector and