The
Conventionstaler was a standard
silverSilver is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...
coin of the
Holy Roman EmpireThe Holy Roman Empire was a union of territories in Central Europe during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period under a Holy Roman Emperor. The first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was Otto I, crowned in 962. The last was Francis II, who abdicated and dissolved the Empire in 1806 during...
. It was introduced in 1754 and contained one tenth of a
Cologne markThe Cologne Mark was a unit of weight equivalent to 233.856 grams. It was introduced by the Danish King Hans in the late 15th century and was used as a standard for weighing metals...
of silver (~23.39
gramThe gram , ; symbol g, is a unit of mass.Originally defined as "the absolute weight of a volume of pure water equal to the cube of the hundredth part of a metre, and at the temperature of melting ice" , a gram is now defined as one one-thousandth of the SI base unit, the kilogram, or...
s).
The
Conventionstaler was a standard
silverSilver is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...
coin of the
Holy Roman EmpireThe Holy Roman Empire was a union of territories in Central Europe during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period under a Holy Roman Emperor. The first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was Otto I, crowned in 962. The last was Francis II, who abdicated and dissolved the Empire in 1806 during...
. It was introduced in 1754 and contained one tenth of a
Cologne markThe Cologne Mark was a unit of weight equivalent to 233.856 grams. It was introduced by the Danish King Hans in the late 15th century and was used as a standard for weighing metals...
of silver (~23.39
gramThe gram , ; symbol g, is a unit of mass.Originally defined as "the absolute weight of a volume of pure water equal to the cube of the hundredth part of a metre, and at the temperature of melting ice" , a gram is now defined as one one-thousandth of the SI base unit, the kilogram, or...
s).
The Conventionstaler was used as a standard in most of the Empire, with a variety of subdivisions being used, including the
ReichsthalerThe Reichsthaler was a standard Thaler of the Holy Roman Empire, established in 1566 by the Leipzig convention. It was also the name of a unit of account in northern Germany and of a silver coin issued by Prussia.-Reichsthaler coin:...
,
Austro-Hungarian GuldenThe Gulden or forint was the currency of the Austro-Hungarian Empire between 1754 and 1892 when it was replaced by the Krone/korona as part of the introduction of the gold standard. In Austria, the Gulden was initially divided into 60 Kreuzer, and in Hungary, the forint was divided into 60 krajczár...
,
South German GuldenThe Gulden was the currency of the states of southern Germany between 1754 and 1873. These states included Bavaria, Baden, Württemberg, Frankfurt and Hohenzollern. It is also sometimes referred to as florin....
,
GroschenGroschen was the name for a coin used in various German-speaking states as well as some non-German-speaking countries of Central Europe , the Danubian principalities...
,
PfennigThe Pfennig is an old German coin or note, which existed from the 9th century until the introduction of the euro in 2002....
and
HellerThe Heller or Häller was a German coin valued at half a Pfennig named after the city of Hall am Kocher . The coin was produced from the beginning of the 13th century on as silver pfennig ....
. The Conventionstaler replaced as standard the
KronenthalerThe Kronenthaler was a silver coin first issued in the Austrian Netherlands . It contained one ninth of a Cologne mark of silver and was thus equal to the Reichsthaler of the Leipzig convention. Most examples show the bust of the Austrian ruler on the obverse and four crowns on the reverse, hence...
which contained one ninth of a mark.
During the early 19th century, the Conventionstaler was superseded by a
ThalerThe Thaler was a silver coin used throughout Europe for almost four hundred years. Its name lives on in various currencies as the dollar or tolar. Etymologically, "Thaler" is an abbreviation of "Joachimsthaler", a coin type from the city of Joachimsthal in Bohemia, where some of the first such...
containing one fourteenth of a Cologne mark of silver, based on the
Prussian ThalerThe Thaler was the currency of Prussia until 1857. From 1750, it was distinct from north German Reichsthaler unit of account in that it contained 1/14 of a Cologne mark of silver, rather than 1/12, and was minted as a coin...