Neil S Berman - Expert Numismatist & Gold Coin Dealer

Gold Coins Trade through History

Venetian Gold Ducat

Venetian Gold Ducat 1280-1819. The Florentines issued the first European gold trade coin after the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1252.   Quickly, both Genoa and Venice copied the coins in 1284, which at first looked a lot like the Byzantine Aureus which was still circulating to a degree in Southern Europe. The coins were .997 fine gold (23.5 to 23.66 carats) and weighted about 3.5 grams or sixty-seven coins to one Mark (about 237 grams of gold).

The coin was copied again by the Dutch and the Hungarians. Later, it was used in Artois, the various Austrian, French, Italian States, the German States and the Rhine Confederation, Bohemia, Courland, Denmark, Norway under Denmark, Gluckstadt, Gronsveld, Holstein-Gottorp, Holstein-Ploen, Holstein-Norburg Poeln, Liechtenstein, Liege, Lithuania, Riga (Latvia) under Poland, Narva, Netherlands, Poland and Danzig, Reckheim, Reval, Romania, Russia, Finland under Russia, Schaumburg-Pinneberg, Sweden, Estonia under Sweden, the Swiss Cantons, Tournoai, Transylvania, Wafenbuttel, and the area which now encompasses Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia.  

Also in the Dutch Indonesia (East Indies), Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Formosa (Taiwan), Guyana, Brazil, Malacca (West Malaysia), New Holland (now Western Australia) and the New Netherlands (now New York City). The type lasted over five hundred years and was replaced by the heavier and more popular Spanish Gold Escudo.