I took some pic's of the 1696/5 Leopold Taler I had just got. If you click on the pic you should be able to view a full high res. pic. if I did things correctly.

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You sure know how to capture an image. Well done.... and BTW very nice Taler !

Ah, the beauty of macro-photography!  I see you like to study the intricacies of the design as much a I do.

Great Taler, and great imaging.  love the overdates

Ah, the beauty of macro-photography!  I see you like to study the intricacies of the design as much a I do.

I will agree with you on that.

The engravers are over looked as masters of art. Only the great painters were looked at as masters. The painters had a much larger area to work with. What most new numist do not understand. Is that the engraver had to engrave more than one set of dies. During the 15th to early 17th centuries, the metals used for dies were not that hardend. The dies would start to show signs of braking down after 1,500 strikes or less. When the old dies were replaced with new ones, this is were minor and major die varieties would show up. Thats why you can see changes in the hair or face during the same year of issue. It would not be easy for the engraver to make a perfect maching set of obverse or reverse dies. You will see more major obv. design varieties then rev. on Talers. As always, there is much debate on this subject.
The evolution in the minting process through the centuries, is a very interesting part of numismactics to me.

Great Taler, and great imaging.  love the overdates

Thanks Stef.

I will agree with you on that.

The engravers are over looked as masters of art. Only the great painters were looked at as masters. The painters had a much larger area to work with. What most new numist do not understand. Is that the engraver had to engrave more than one set of dies. During the 15th to early 17th centuries, the metals used for dies were not that hardend. The dies would start to show signs of braking down after 1,500 strikes or less. When the old dies were replaced with new ones, this is were minor and major die varieties would show up. Thats why you can see changes in the hair or face during the same year of issue. It would not be easy for the engraver to make a perfect maching set of obverse or reverse dies. You will see more major obv. design varieties then rev. on Talers. As always, there is much debate on this subject.
The evolution in the minting process through the centuries, is a very interesting part of numismactics to me.

  From studying the French engravers, I've seen the progression of art in coinage through the ages.  It really is fascinating. It's a major part of my interest in medals and jetons.  In fact (if I can ever get around to it), I'd love to compile information on some of these engravers.  I've only read bits and pieces so far, but the subject should be interesting.
  It would seem that the jeton dies lasted for a pretty long time, as some were used from one year to the next, especially in the case of obverse portraits.  But then again, mintages were said to be low on a lot of them, so that could have a lot to do with it.  I have a specific example in mind, of a Louis XVI portrait, which has the same die chip on several different years of issue.  This is what I find interesting and informative about this kind of research.  I wonder if the taler dies were similar to jeton dies, I can't imagine they'd be much different in metal composition.  From what I've read, the technology was passed around pretty well in those days.

Jetons are small and thin compared to a Taler. It took a lot more force from the die when minting a thick Taler. I do believe that the dies used for the small minor coinage would last for quite some time. It was told to me that the dies used for Talers were only good for around 1,200 to 2,000 strikes before the dies would start to fail during the 16th and early to mid 17th century. I would think that at the Imperial mints which had better tech. in those days, that the medal used in dies were better. Which would result in higher mintage numbers. The small German State mints that had the rights to mint their own coinage had to do with what they had. Just looking at Talers from Austria and places like Saxony, you can tell which had better equipment with which to mint coinage during the 16th and early 17th century. Austrian Talers were sharply struck and Talers from Saxony were weakly struck. So weakly struck, that a lot of the design you can hardly see. I have seen German Talers with low mintages that have large die cracks. I'm buying an Austrain Taler that is believe to have a mintage of around 2,000 that has a large die crack. I still believe that with the thickness of the Talers and the force needed to mint them, is why the dies would fail so fast. I'm still trying to gain more knowledge on the minting tech. used during the 16th to 18th centuries. I've only been able to talk with a few other numist. that have studied the subject. But as I stated in my eariler post, it is a much debated subject, and its hard to try and put everything together when you get five different explainations. It would be great to be able to time travel back to the 16th century and see first hand how it was done.

  That makes sense, as talers are freakin' huge compared with other issues.  Jetons average about 30-32mm up until the early to mid-1800's, and I have only come across a few with die cracks.  Chips and planchet flaws, along with poor strikes and recarved dates/legends, are much more abundant. 
  Until you posted the roller press pics, I hadn't heard of that form of minting.  I had assumed that the screw press was used since the phasing out of hammered coinage.  The extent of my knowledge on this subject is what I have read of the old French mint workers who often fled to England when the heat was on them, so all of this new info is fascinating.
  It would be very educational to spend a day at one of the old mints, but I doubt they'd let us in.  I feel that we're lucky to have the information that we have, all things considered.