The Tympf (rarely Timpf, Polish: Tymf) was a low-grade silver coin used in
Poland-Lithuania,
Brandenburg-Prussia
Brandenburg-Prussia (german: Brandenburg-Preußen; ) is the historiographic denomination for the early modern realm of the Brandenburgian Hohenzollerns between 1618 and 1701. Based in the Electorate of Brandenburg, the main branch of the Hohenz ...
, and
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
in the 17th and 18th centuries.
History
The coin was first struck in 1663 in Bromberg (present-day
Bydgoszcz
Bydgoszcz ( , , ; german: Bromberg) is a city in northern Poland, straddling the meeting of the River Vistula with its left-bank tributary, the Brda. With a city population of 339,053 as of December 2021 and an urban agglomeration with more ...
) in Polish Prussia by mint master Andreas Tympf for whom the coin is named after. The nominal value was initially 30 groschen, but it soon dropped to 18 groschen due to the low silver content.
Tympfe were also minted in Brandenburg-Prussia from around 1685.
After the Saxon electors took over the Polish royal crown in 1688, many tympfe in the Leipzig mint were struck as 18 groschen pieces. Then, the Prussian King Frederick II, who had conquered the city in the Seven Years' War discontinued minting in 1765.
The Russian tsars minted tympfe in the Polish-Lithuanian territories they occupied from 1707 to 1709 during the Northern War and from 1759 to 1761 during the Seven Years' War.
There were other mints in
Königsberg
Königsberg (, ) was the historic Prussian city that is now Kaliningrad, Russia. Königsberg was founded in 1255 on the site of the ancient Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, and was named ...
and
Stettin
Szczecin (, , german: Stettin ; sv, Stettin ; Latin language, Latin: ''Sedinum'' or ''Stetinum'') is the capital city, capital and largest city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in northwestern Poland. Located near the Baltic Sea and the Po ...
.
After the partitions of Poland, the coin was soon replaced by other currencies. A total of around six million of these coins were issued, fetching over two million guilders.
[{{Cite book , date=1970-12-31 , editor-last=Schrötter , editor-first=Friedrich von , editor2-last=Bauer , editor2-first=N. , editor3-last=Regling , editor3-first=K. , editor4-last=Suhle , editor4-first=A. , editor5-last=Vasmer , editor5-first=R. , editor6-last=Wilcke , editor6-first=J. , title=Wörterbuch der Münzkunde , url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9783110830552 , doi=10.1515/9783110830552, isbn=978-3-11-001227-9 ]
The tympf was considered in Poland because of its low value, especially in the years before the partition of Poland, as a symbol of the poor state of the country. There is a saying Dobry żart tymfa wart (A good joke is worth a tympf).
Literature
Friedrich von Schrötter (ed.) with N. Bauer, K. Regling, A. Suhle, R. Vasmer, J. Wilcke: Dictionary of numismatics. De Gruyter, Berlin 1970 (reprint of the original 1930 edition). p. 247
References
Silver coins
Coins of Russia
Early Modern currencies