Bracteates are thin, uni-faced coins that were struck with only one die. A piece of soft-material was placed under the flan, thereby creating a design of the obverse that can be seen as a mirror image on the reverse. Although these coins were very fragile, they dominated the coinage for 150-200 years in large parts of medieval Europe. This book is about the function of bracteates and how they can be linked to the evolution of coinage policies – especially re-coinage.
To date almost all books, articles and documents on the subject are written in the German language and outside of Germany interest in collecting bracteates is not great. However the function and history of bracteates is the very essence of the development of coinage in the Middle-Ages and economic history as a whole. Thus, this book is not only for numismatists, but is also of great importance to economic historians and it is with this in mind that Spink are delighted to bring this publication to the attention of an English speaking audience. This book is a revised and updated version of a book previously published in the Swedish language by the Swedish Numismatic Society (SNF), Stockholm, 2012.
