The Speciesthaler, also Speciestaler or Speziestaler, was a type of silver specie coin that was widespread from the 17th to the 19th century and was based on the 9-Thaler standard of the original Reichsthaler. In Scandinavian sources the term Speciesdaler is used and, in German sources, the abbreviation Species was also common.
The 1566 Imperial Minting Ordinance of the Holy Roman Empire stipulated that 9 Reichsthalers were to be coined a fine Cologne Mark of silver (ca. 234 g). The official Reichstaler to the 9-Thaler standard thus had a calculated fine silver content of 25.984 g.[1] [2]
Speciestaler was a common name in (Northern) Germany and Scandinavia in the 18th and 19th centuries. The suffix -taler goes back to the Joachimstaler Guldengroschen. The prefix Species- goes back to the Latin word species, "face" or, in Middle Latin, "bust image". Speciesthalers are mostly silver coins with an embossed head or bust image of the mint owner.[3] [4] There are examples here from the Dresden Mint and Leipzig Mint The Speciesthalers from Hamburg featured the city coat of arms instead of a bust.
In 1619, the Reichstaler to a 9-Thaler standard was designated as a value-stable accounting unit of the Hamburger Bank and referred to as the Bankothaler or Banco-Thaler. From 1622, the Reichstaler was the common basis of the Mark and Schilling currencies in Hamburg and Lübeck. From then, the Reichsthaler was divided into exactly three Marks.
Between 1730 and 1764 around 110,000 such Speciesthalers were minted in Hamburg (fineness 888 8/9; gross weight 29.2 g). The mintings from 1730 and 1735 bear the inscription Moneta Nova, a reference to the Imperial Minting Ordinance. On the Speciesthalers minted from 1761-1764 it is ao noted that there are 48 Schilling Species. The naming of Schilling Species was necessary because the silver content of the Hamburg Schillings which were part of the Schilling Hamburger Current (Hamburger Kurantgeld) introduced in 1725 was only 5/6 of the Schilling Species.[5]