Folia archeologica 30.

Gedai István: Apafi Mihály 50 dukátos verete

THE 50 DUCAT MINT OF MIHÁLY APAFI An outstanding numismatic Hungaricum came into the possession of the Coin Cabinet of the Hungarian National Museum with the 50 ducat gold coin (Type Resch 217/a) of Mihály Apafi, Prince of Transylvania. This type is, in a 100 ducat weight, (Resch 217), known only in two copies: one of them was sent by Mihály Apafi to Emperor Leopold I; this is now in the coin collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; the other one was donated by Apafi to a General Count Andrássy; this latter copy came into the collection of the Prince Montenuovo. Resch describes a 50 ducat specimen of this type as having been in the Coburg Collection. It is a regrettable fact that we do not know the person who was donated by the Prince with the 50 ducat mint, neither the circumstances how it came into the possession of the Duke of Coburg and waht happened to it when it left the Coburg Collection. The antecedents of the 50 ducat coin in question are unknown as well, but in view of the copies mentioned, published in the last century, we have no causes for doubting that the 50 ducat coin, described in the Coburg Collection, is identic with that now in the Hungarian National Museum - even if we cannot give account of its wanderings during some decades. The acquisition of the 50 ducat coin was preceded by an exceptionally careful examination; we compared it with the Vienna copy when it became evident that the 100 ducat coin, kept in Vienna, and our 50 ducat piece (furthermore the Viennese silver mint) were made with an identical die; the genuinity of our copy is proved thus beyond doubt. The 100 and 50 ducat mints (together with the 100 ducat mint bearing on one planchet a ten ducate mint and ten one ducate ones), furthermore mints of curious forms - hexagonal, stelliform, crescent-shaped - in the value of 25, 10 etc. ducats, were no currency coins but gifts of the Prince to people of different social status.