Wallachia, Michael III Radu (Mihnea), shilling 1658, Snagov mint.
Obv. IOMICHAEL RAD IDGVL TR PR (Iohannes Michael Radu I Dei Gratia Vallachiae Transalpinae Princeps), letter M recut on the die; half-figure right, cuirassed and crowned, holding a sceptre and the hilt of a sword in his hands.
Rv. impressions of two adjacent dies: +SI [D]EVS NO[BISCV]M OVISCON NO (OVIS for QVIS); double-headed eagle under an open crown; stars between the dies.
Copper, 0.63 g, 16.5 mm. Luchian, Buzdugan and Oprescu 274-277 (they do not know the legend with I between RAD and DG); Repertorium 22.2.2.1. R.
Grade II, brown patina.
An extremely readable specimen. Michael Radu, an adventurer claiming (probably falsely) to be the son of Prince Radu Mihnea, briefly gained the Wallachian throne. He was a usurer, poet, scholar and polyglot, and as a ruler he styled himself archduke. After an almost 200 year break, he opened the Wallachian mint, minting copper coins of the size of base silver shillings which arrived from Poland (in Poland, however, his coins are almost unknown). Although the coins are small and made of copper, they display the torso of the ruler taken from Austrian and Polish thalers, and a double-headed Imperial eagle. Relics of a mint from the times of Michael III, equipped with a milling mint machine, were found in the Snagov monastery in the interwar period. These ‘shillings’ were probably minted there, but only traces of counterfeiting Swedish shillings were found.
