Circulating example of a very rare, sporadically traded issue.
The semi-talariki are among some of the rarest typologically coins of Sigismund III Vasa. Highly valued by the authors of catalogs and price lists, for example, Tyszkiewicz valued the present issue at 50 marks, the same as the 1622 Danzig ducat or the 1645 Toruń ducat.
Fully legible details. Traces of fine binding. Corrected background and image.
Obverse: in a pearl border, a royal half-figure wearing a five-crowned crown, with lilac fleurons, with rosette-shaped jewels in an open hoop, surmounted by a royal apple; in a tubular orifice and armor, with a sash, with the Order of the Golden Fleece suspended from a chain with 5 visible flints; holding a royal apple with two bands of jewels in the shape of rosettes in a 3 x 1 arrangement and a sword, to the right; in the outer rim a legend punctuated by the Half-Cossack coat of arms in a simple shield of arms:
SIGIS(mundus) III-D(ei):G(ratia)-REX-POL(oniae)-M(agnus)-D(ux):-LIT(huanie)-RVS(siae)-PRVS(siae)-MASO(vien)-;
Reverse: crowned in a pearl rim, with a four-cornered crown, with 7 rosette fleurons, with rosette and pearl-shaped jewels in an open rim; a nine-furlong shield of arms with the coats of arms of the Crown, Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Sweden, Folkung and the coat of arms of the Snopes of the Vasa dynasty, with labrys on the sides, surrounded by a chain of 14 flints, with the Order of the Golden Fleece; between the shield and the chain initials I-I of Jacob Jakobson and the date 16-31; in the outer rim a legend divided by the Order:
SAM(ogitiae)-LIV(oniaeque)-NEG-NO(n) SVE(corum)-GOT(horum)-VA(n)D(alorum):Q(ue)-H(ae)R(editarius)-REX;
Silver, diameter 38 mm, weight 13.65 g.
