1963 Luxembourg 250-franc

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villa66
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1963 Luxembourg 250-franc

Beitrag von villa66 » Do 26.11.15 13:51

Luxembourg’s 1963 250-franc piece, struck in .835 silver, 37mm in diameter and weighing 25g. A relatively low-mintage commemorative coin, available in two finishes. The “dark finish” pieces numbered 8,500 and the “bright finish” coins—this is one—had a mintage of some 11,500. They were demonetized at the beginning of 1986.

As the date-pair “963-1963” suggests, this piece marks the millennium of Luxembourg City. The pictured castle and its attendant fortifications provide a strong clue to a dominant thread in the City’s long history: the back-and-forth of armed conflict.

Perhaps—we can always hope—that the last cycle of invasion (1940) and re-invasion (1944) was the City’s last.

I was a soldier stationed in next-door West Germany (as it was then widely called) when I went looking for the American military cemetery that I had read was just east of Luxembourg City. Instead—after much walking—I stumbled onto the German military cemetery at Sandweiler. I spent a long time among the graves there. It was a sad but peaceful place, shaded by many trees and with dark stone (shared) grave markers. My sense of the place, in addition to surprise—I remember it vividly—was one of muted darkness.

It’s a memory which, oddly, dovetails with the two finishes of this 250-franc coin, because when I did finally make it to the American military cemetery in Hamm, I was startled by its brightness. So much sunlit green grass and bright blue sky. The few clouds were a bright white and so were the rows of grave-stones that snapped bright white in the sun.

You know, we coin collectors deal in big numbers all the time. Millions, tens of millions…you name it. Heck, in American numismatics, a coin with a mintage of a 100,000 can be a really tough coin. So when this bright-finish 250-franc piece shows up with a tiny mintage like 11,500, well….

Well, it was a tiny mintage before that particular day in the cemetery. Because I knew how many white Crosses and Stars of David I was looking at.

Five-thousand is a bigger number than I thought.

v.
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