While visiting my family over Christmas, I found some cool items from the past. My parents' spare bedroom where I stayed also doubles as my dads office (or vice versa, I must be honest). Collecting coins and stamps has been a family hobby. My grandfather and now my dad collected many rare coins and stamps over the past decades. Although I haven't really taken the hobby serious, I do really enjoy looking at rare coins. I have collected some myself over the years.
During my stay in this office packed with treasures, I saw a neat stack of silver coins on the corner of my dads desk. I had a look and immediately got excited. It turned out to be some silver Dutch guilders from passed centuries. Five 2.5 guilder coins which we call Knaak to be precise. Here an overview:
As you can see these are from the 1800s and have a number of different rulers depicted. The first coin from 1808 contains the face of King Lodewijk Napoleon who was the brother of Napoleon I. The second coin is actually a three guilders coin and not a Knaak of 2.5 guilders. It has king Willem I depicted on it and was minted in 1823. Willem I was the first king of the Netherlands. The remaining coins are all from 1898 and depict the first Queen's face Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands. All these royalties were once in charge of what is now the Netherlands.
Here are closeups of the head and tail of the 1908 silver Knaak with Wilhelmina on it:
While holding such coins in my hand my imagination always starts to run. Three generations of Kings. Family of Napoleon. What would these coins be worth back in the days compared to now. What kind of people used these coins and what was bought with them over the centuries.
It would be so exciting if one could trace back the coins' full history!
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