Maria Theresia - Austrian Empress -
Silver Thaler 40mm (27.9 grams)
Struck in Italy 1815-1840
K . IMP . HU . BO . REG . M . THERESIA . D . G . - Veiled draped bust of Maria Theresa right.
BURG . CO . TYR . 1780 . X . ARCHID . AVST . DID . - Austria coat of arms.

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Maria Theresa (German: Maria Theresia Walburga Amalia Christina;^[1] 13 May 1717 – 29 November 1780) was the only female ruler of the Habsburg dominions and the last of the House of Habsburg. She was the sovereign of Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, Mantua, Milan, Lodomeria and Galicia, the Austrian Netherlands, and Parma. By marriage, she was Duchess of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, German Queen and Holy Roman Empress.^[2]

She became sovereign when her father, Emperor Charles VI, died in October 1740. Charles VI paved the way for her accession with the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, as the Habsburg lands were bound by Salic law which prevented female succession.^[3] Upon the death of her father, Saxony, Prussia, Bavaria and France (the states of Europe that had previously recognised the sanction) repudiated it. Prussia proceeded to invade the affluent Habsburg province of Silesia, sparking a nine year long conflict known as the War of the Austrian Succession.

Maria Theresa promulgated financial and educational reforms, with the assistance of Count Friedrich Wilhelm von Haugwitz and Gottfried van Swieten, promoted commerce and the development of agriculture, and reorganised Austria's ramshackle military, all of which strengthened Austria's international standing, but refused to allow religious toleration. In addition, contemporary travellers thought her regime was bigoted and superstitious.^[4]

Though she was expected to cede power to her husband Francis I or son Joseph II, both of whom were officially her co-rulers in Austria and Bohemia, Maria Theresa was the absolute sovereign of her dominions.^[5] She criticised and disapproved of many of Joseph's actions. She vehemently resisted the First Partition of Poland, but Joseph and her Chancellor, Prince Kaunitz, forced her to authorise it. Maria Theresa oversaw the unification of the Austrian and Bohemian chancellories. She had sixteen children by Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor, including a queen of France, a queen of Naples, a duchess of Parma and two Holy Roman Emperors. Maria Theresa was intellectually inferior to her sons, but possessed qualities appreciated in a monarch: warm heart, practical mind, firm determination, sound perception, and, most importantly, readiness to acknowledge mental superiority of her advisers. As a young monarch who had to fight two dynastic wars, she believed that her cause should be the cause of her subjects, but in her later years she came to understand that their cause must be hers.^[6][7]

The Maria Theresa Thaler is probably one of the most famous and well known coins of the world.

Originally struck in Austria from 1740 to 1780, the Thaler was the currency of the Austrian Empire. It was very important for trade with the Levant (parts of Turkey, Lebanon, Syria). Over time, the Maria Theresa Thaler became the best known and most popular silver coin in the Arabian world. After the death of Empress Maria Theresa in 1780, Joseph II permitted the Austrian mint to continue striking the coin with the 1780 dies in order to meet demand from the Middle East. The 1780 taler was the only silver coin that the Arabs trusted and would accept. Since then, the Maria Theresa Thaler has been restruck for trade purposes at Vienna, Austria with the 1780 date frozen in time. The taler became the unofficial currency in some areas of Africa and Asia, and may still be in use today as a "trade silver dollar" in some Arabian bazaars.

Particularly on older strikes earlier than about 1850, almost each individual coin shows minor differences. Such differences help specialists to determine the origin and strike date of individual specimen. A close examination of more than 20 coins struck in Venice between 1817 and 1833 showed that nearly all coins were struck from different dies. Major characteristics of common variants are described in the List of variants.

Various articles claim that the Maria Theresa Thaler was re-struck with an unchanged appearance since 1780. However, this is only really true for restrikes made after about 1850. Earlier strikes are usually relatively easy to identify and classify. Unfortunately, the statement may cause collectors - and sometimes dealers - to believe that their coins might be original coins struck in 1780 or shortly thereafter. Sometimes such coins will actually be sold as "original strike". In reality, most of those "originals" will be post-1850 strikes.

In Original and Restrike we compare two coins struck in 1780 (Vienna mint) and a coin struck around 1781 (Guenzburg mint) with a modern restrike. This may help to identify the differences.

The Talers provides a list of major variants. This list is not complete and is being extended on an ongoing basis. There are somewhere between 100 and 150 major variants, and an uncountable number of strikes with minor differences.

You can find more details and informations at www.mtt.at.tf (Note: this web page is in German.).