Owner Comments:
1622 was the year that the Spanish Treasure Fleet including the famous Atocha ship was wrecked in a storm off the coast of Florida, yielding lots of gold and silver coins for collectors in the 20th century. Dutch ships were wrecked off the coast of Australia this year also.
This is a rare date, even a rare decade, for Netherlands ducats. This is one of only two NGC graded Netherlands ducats from any mint from any year of the 1620's, although there is one from 1629 from Friesland designated XF Details. PCGS has graded two Holland ducats VF30 and AU50 from 1622, and none from any other provincial mint. However, I cannot see the PCGS "details grades" coins on their population report, and I know there is one 1622 Utrecht ducat "AU Details Tooled" for sale on Ebay for ... $5,000. It is a disheveled looking coin.
I did find one other of this same issue, from West Friesland, 1622, in worse condition raw on coin archives from a Kunker auction in 2019. No others.
3.49 grams, 22mm diameter.
This was lucky to come out problem-free and mint state; when I bought it raw I figured it would come out XF and with problems. But, this is just how it was struck apparently.
This coin comes from the "100+ year old collection of Hans Erb from Chur Switzerland." According to the dealer. Hans Erb was an author of many books about the cultural history of old Zurich. The dealer who sold me this coin, "World Coin Shop" in Switzerland, was nice enough to provide me with some photos of the original tags and 1899 postmarked envelope from London to "Robert Furrer" in Switzerland. The address on the envelope just says "Zugerstrasse Horgen, Switzerland, Near Zurich"! No street number, no postal code. I guess everyone knew each other back then.