GOLDEN GREATS
In the latest part of his series focussing on the gold coins of Europe, Sebastian Wieschowski examines an intriguing piece from the Netherlands which sheds light on the tale of the century’s forgotten monarch
We examine a Netherlands gold coin which sheds light on a forgotten monarch
The young girl looks expectantly to the left; she wears an inconspicuous pearl necklace; the long hair is curled over her shoulder. At first glance, she looks like a normal child, but the image is to be found on a gold coin from the Netherlands and the child is seventeen-year-old Queen Wilhelmina.
The great-grandmother of today's Dutch King WillemAlexander has since fallen into obscurity, but her portrait can still be found today at every wellstocked precious metals dealer in Europe. After having already been marked with the image of the infantile Queen in 1892 and 1895, the Dutch government first issued golden currency coins with a nominal value of ten guilders in 1897. With a circulation of just under 453,000 pieces, these former circulation gold coins in common preservation quality are not primarily collectibles, but rather an investment alternative with a historical background.
The Netherlands, like the German Reich, was one of the countries that had not joined the Latin Monetary Union in the mid-19th century. Nevertheless, the Netherlands also covered their coins with gold and silver, so the coins to ten guilders had a purity of 900/1000 pieces and a gross weight of 6.729 grams and a fine weight of 6.05 grams. The design of the Dutch gold coins was revised in 1911, since then, the portrait showed an older version of the Queen wearing a crown.
The 1912 and 1913 issues were each minted in the millions. It is striking that even during the First World War in 1917, a total of four million pieces were issued. The third design with an aged queen appeared between 1925 and 1933 with a mintage of several million pieces per year. In addition to the ten-guilder coins, smaller gold coins were issued at five guilders.
The story of Dutch Queen Wilhelmina is worth a closer look. Born in 1880, she became the Queen of the Netherlands at the age of ten. Until her legal age in 1898, her mother took office. Between 1898 and the end of the Second World War in 1948, however, Wilhelmina wore the royal crown and was one of the longest-reigning monarchs in the world at the time of her abdication. She was the first woman on the Dutch throne and caused quite a stir, among other things, as she wrote her coronation speech herself, quite uncommon for the time.
Wilhelmina is closely connected with German and European history, not least because she enforced strict neutrality of her country during the First World War and granted the German Emperor Wilhelm II an asylum after the end of the conflict, helping to prevent him from being extradited as a war criminal. Wilhelmina spent a large part of the Second World War in exile in London after the defeat of her country against the German troops.
Her decision to return to the Netherlands in March 1945 is legendary. She travelled across the Belgian border on foot. Clearly a woman of substance and strength, Wilhelmina has gone down in history as a progressive monarch who wanted to promote the democracy of state institutions.