Coins of the Crusades

FRENCH COIN COLLECTING ?

The 'clash of civilisations' was to take a very violent turn in 1098 with the beginning of the crusades. The Crusades, which were led above all by the French nobility ( attested by the fact that the Arabs used the term ' franjs' for the crusaders ), were to alter dramatically the map of the world, moving the border of Europe to the Middle East. The Crusades are at the origin of an exciting numismatic period , lasting for two centuries, the time it took for the ebb and flow of history to give military domination back to Islam, which was at the time dominated by the Turks, who had come from the steppes of central Asia. The greatest expansion of Islam was to be the siege of Vienne in 1683, three centuries ago.

A 'Gros' of Hugues IV, king of Cyprus.

Estimated at : 900 FRF.

Numismatics of the Crusades is increasingly well studied and also better appreciated , but - political correctness ? - still only appeals to a very small number of coin-collectors.
The coins are varied and include strikes of local barons from Tripoli, Antiochus, Jerusalem, Tyr, Beirut, Edessa… as well as those of the great orders of knights, the Order of St. John of Jerusalem , and the Order of Malta. Unfortunately, the Templars never struck their own coins. Crusade coins can be found for as little as a hundred and fifty francs ( thirty dollars ), and the rarest and most important examples barely go beyond twenty thousand francs ( four thousand dollars ).
The recommended book to read is : " Crusader Coins ", by Alex Malloy, Irene Fraley Preston and Arthur J Seltmann. There are several very important collections in different museums, in Israel amongst other places, but there is no reference collection.