Owner Comments:
This coin is one of just 4 mint-state graded Netherlands Ducats at NGC from the 1660's from any provincial mint. NGC has graded one other Utrecht 1661 ducat, in AU58, but that example has no face on it. I have seen it, as it sold at a Heritage auction in 2019. There is just one other 1661 Netherlands ducat at NGC in mint state, from Zwolle, in MS62.
1661 was a busy year. On January 6 “The Fifth Monarchists” lead by Thomas Venner unsuccessfully attempted to seize control of London; George Monck's regiment defeated them. At the end of that month the body of Oliver Cromwell is exhumed and subjected to a posthumous execution. Cromwell’s head was sold at auctions through the 20th century. For reference, the great fire of London was in 1666, which was rumored to have been started by the Dutch. This is the time of Isaac Newton, the Royal Academy, and the Diary of Sam Pepys, and another outbreak of the plague.
In March of 1661, King Louis XIV of France, the “Sun King” started to rule independently.
In April of 1661, The Siege of Fort Zeelandia, Dutch strongpoint in Taiwan, by Chinese-Japanese warlord Koxinga began. Portugal and the Dutch Republic signed the Treaty of The Hague, whereby New Holland (Dutch Brazil) was formally ceded to Portugal by the Dutch.
The first modern bank notes were issued in Stockholm, Sweden, kicking off a long slow march from consistent specie to fabulously debased currency. 350 years later, and governments are actively competing to diminish the buying power of their national currencies.