Nieznana odmiana medalu z 1788 r. upamiętniającego drugą reformę monetarną Stanisława Augusta Poniatowskiego
An Unknown Type of Medal (1788) in Commemoration of the Second Monetary Reform of King Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski

Summary/Abstract: The collection of the Numismatic Cabinet of the National Museum in Krakow is in possession of a medal which is unattested in the numismatic literature and the contemporary sources. It was created on the basis of an amalgamation of two medal dies by Johann Philip Holzhaeusser: one with a representation of the goddess Minerva (a die of the obverse of a medal issued in 1788 to commemorate the second monetary reform) and the other with an image of the head of King Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski (the obverse of a medal struck in 1777 at the request of the National Education Commission (KEN) and awarded to General-Major Stefan de Rieule for his authorship of a work on agriculture). A comparative analysis conducted in the context of the iconographic patterns of King Stanislaus Augustus-era medals has made it possible to conclude that the object is an item struck for a collector or a memorial specimen rather than an example of an official medal type in commemoration of the second monetary reform. This hypothesis is further justified by the fact that the medal in question isa single specimen of good quality, struck in silver. It is however more difficult to determine the precise date of issue of the medal. Technically speaking, the medal appears to be a specimen struck in 1788 at the earliest, with the latest dating possiblybefore or during the construction of a new building of the Warsaw mint in theyears 1817–1821 and the general replacement of the minting machinery and equipment.However, due to the fact that Holzhaeusser’s medal dies would continue toremain in use during the 19th century, both at the mint of the Congress Kingdom ofPoland and in the Sankt Petersburg mint, where the property of the Warsaw mint would be relocated beginning from the year 1865, this hypothesis cannot be substantiatedwith certainty.

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