Turkey: The Crusaders Take Constantinople

The Latin emperors struck a series of copper tracheae during their 57 years of occupation of Constantinople. This one is quite nice for the series; normally both sides look terrible.

BOB REIS

Along time ago, I once bought a batch of old slabbed U.S. silver dollars on behalf of another dealer. I read one slab wrong and called the coin “1879S.” What it was actually was an 1879 plain. On the holder, it said “S dollar,” meaning silver dollar, not “S” mint. The other dealer yelled at me for stupidity and called that mistake a “catastrophe.” Nah. The conquest and sacking of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204 was a catastrophe. Here’s what happened. In about a century (12th to 13th), the later Roman (Byzantine) Empire accumulated a rather large debt with various Venetian trading houses. Those traders, who constituted the Venetian ruling class, traded in products and finance. You could call them banks if you want: banks with businesses on the…

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World Coin News (Digital) - 1 Issue, February 2025

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