Overview

This site was created in an effort to list (in chronological order) all dies that were used in the mintage of the 1 skilling 1771. Although our work is not yet complete (will it ever be?), we’ve so far found and listed 585 obverse and 641 reverse dies that makes up 987 die combinations of this mintage series. We would like to extend our thanks to Peter Poulsen for the use of several of his scans at http://www.steppeulvene.com/index.1771_skilling.html and to Frank Pedersen for valuable new insights into the chronology and origination of the coins. Many thanks also to Bjørn Kristian Wang and Jakob Rye for much appreciated contributions.

Mintage

With a total mintage volume of more than 54 million, the 1 skilling 1771 is one of the most common 18th century coins to be found among collectors. To produce such a vast amount of coins, there were probably used more than 650 pairs of dies to create close to a thousand different variations over a period of 16 years (1771-1786). The coins were minted at three different places: Altona, Copenhagen and Kongsberg, and there were probably five different die cutters involved in the process: Johan Henrik Wolff, Johan Ephraim Bauert, Georg Valtentin Bauert, Anders Lunde and Nicolai William Wrigth.
Although we have a good idea of where and when the various variations were minted, there's still work to be done to pin down the final details. While Wilcke's book "Kurantmønten 1726-1788" has been the standard source for the 1771 skilling mintage numbers, it became increasingly clear that some of his findings were incorrect. From Frank Pedersen's book "CHRISTIAN DEN VII'S MØNTER, 1766-1808/1812" we find an updated overvew that better fits our own obervations of more than 5000 coins. The table below is based upon Pedersens findings and our own detailed study of reverse die fonts, and gives a fairly accurate overview of where and when all 1771 skilling coins were minted. It also highlights the huge gap in productivity beween Altona and the other mints, as we see that they consistently produce a higher amount of coins per die.