Danzig 1/6 Thaler

Danzig's 1/6 Thaler of 1793 was struck during a year when the Free City balanced on a knife-edge of neutrality amid Poland's partitions, using silver likely sourced from local trade flows.

That silver came from planchets possibly recycled from older European coins, a practical necessity for a city-state short on resources. The obverse shows the Danzig coat of arms, a crowned lion, while the reverse bears the denomination and date, all in a style that echoes Prussian influences without quite admitting them.

Exact mintage figures? They vanished in the upheavals of the Napoleonic era. No one knows for sure how many were produced.

Collectors sometimes fixate on the full Thaler and ignore this diminutive sibling, as if size alone denoted value.