I present to your attention another item that even numismatics experts had to think about. The round copper disk looks very much like a coin, except that the design is only on one side.
Photo of the find after cleaning:
What is this? And this is nothing more than a token of the free Dutch city of Groningen worth three pennies.
The token contains the city’s coat of arms — double-headed eagle with the letter G (respectively Groningen) on top and a shield with three horizontal stripes below. The year — is stamped on the sides of the shield. 1591st. In addition, there is a star under the left head of the eagle, under the right — circle. On the reverse side you can find only four dots barely visible to the eye. The diameter of such tokens is about 23.26 cm, weight is about 2.64 g.
The token we presented has a characteristic rectangular through hole. Perhaps the token saved the life of its owner in a drunken fight and this is a mark from the dagger. If so, then undoubtedly it was revered by the owner as a lucky amulet.
According to one version, this token was used as a tavern stamp with a denomination of three pennies. They could drink beer or wine in city drinking establishments. Since the Dutch city of Gronningen was a major trading center of old Europe, such tokens are found not only in Holland itself, but throughout Western Europe and England. In our case, the token was found in the Baltic states, or more precisely in Estonia. No surprise! The Estonian cities of Tallinn (at that time Revel) and Narva were members of the so-called. Hanseatic League, had decent connections throughout Europe.
Finally, I enclose several examples of similar tokens found in other places.
For more interesting finds, see here!
