Lot 557

Gouden Dukaat 1849 Utrecht mint (Sch. 563 / LSch. 445 R1). Standing knight with sword and bundle of arrows between date. Legend: CONCORDIA RES PARVAE CRESCUNT. Inscription within a decorative square with floral outer design: MO . AUR . / REG .BELGII / AD LEGEM / IMPERII. 3,48 g. - RRR Extremely rare – Proof, attractive reflective fields and a light frosted design - Although the Gold Ducat 1849 seems common, almost the entire ‘mintage’ was struck at the St. Petersburg Mint in Russia. These ‘imitations’ or ‘ contemporary forgeries’ are easily identifiable due to the different design of the letter M on the reverse. The original and extremely rare Ducats struck at the Utrecht Mint depict an M where the middle of the letter is in line with the two serifs, whereas the Russian types depict an M where it does not. The mintage of the original Utrecht type was only 14.344 pieces, the Russians struck approximately 4.750.000 Ducats of this date. When we compare the mintage of 1849 to the mintages of the well known and rare Gold Ducats minted in the 1870’s and 1880’s (many of which reach prices realized at auction of several tens of thousands of euro’s), we can only conclude that the Ducat 1849 struck in Utrecht is currently extremely undervalued.