Thuringia State Archives – Rudolstadt State Archives

The written sources of the Rudolstadt State Archives document almost 1000 years of German history. The archive’s main focus is on the Schwarzburg dominions, the GDR district of Gera and the southeastern districts of Thuringia. A special feature of the archive is the geographical extent of its historical district, which also reflects the small states that existed in Thuringia until 1920. Due to the scattered location of the two principalities of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt and Schwarzburg-Sondershausen (both with an upper and lower rulership), the Kyffhäuser forms the northern end point and the Thuringian-Franconian state border the southern end point of this archival area of ​​responsibility.

Of particular numismatic interest are around 1.2 linear meters of files and official books from the former Arnstadt coin cabinet (inventory number 5-14-1380):

“Prince Anton Günther II of Schwarzburg-Arnstadt (*1653, † 1716) promoted science and art during his reign. As a numismatist, he amassed a significant coin collection (2,781 gold coins, including 919 antique, over 1,000 Greek, almost 7,000 Roman coins, more than 6,000 bracteates, almost 2,000 German and European thalers and 4,500 medals).

To avoid the impending financial catastrophe of his principality in 1712, Prince Anton Günther II sold his famous numismatic collection to Duke Frederick II of Saxe-Gotha for 100,000 thalers.

The collection mainly contains coin lists with coin images. These could be original lists or copies of them. Why these finding aids were not handed over to Gotha together with the coins remains unclear” (source)

Text: Sturm, Münzfreunde Erfurt e.V.