Част от колективна находка с талери от втората половина на XVIII - първата половина на XIX век, намерена в района на село Световрачене, Софийско

Abstract

A portion of a hoard consisting of 59 silver thalers discovered in the lands of the village of Svetovrachene near Sofia is published here. The coins are housed in the numismatic depot of the National History Museum - Sofia. They are of two types. The first represents convention thalers of the Habsburg emperors Maria Theresia, Franc II and Francisc I (a total of 38 pieces), as well as one piece each of the Duke Maximilian III Joseph of Bavaria and King Frederick Augustus I of Saxony. The second comprises thalers (coins of 8 reales), the so-called columnarios of the Spanish kings Charles III, Charles IV, and Ferdinand VII struck in the Spanish possessions in America - Mexico, Bolivia and Peru.

These two types of thalers were the most widespread Western silver coins of a high denomination in money circulation in the Bulgarian lands from the second half of the 18th - first half of the 19th c. As attested in the written sources, they circulated freely in the markets of the Ottoman Empire and were willingly accepted as a means of payment by the local population. That was due to their fine manufacture and the high purity of the silver alloys from which they were made. Thus, they contrasted with the "domestic" Ottoman silver coins and therefore, they were preferred for hoarding.