Current Exhibits

The so-called hand stones represent the pinnacle of Baroque and Late Baroque mountain art. Hand stones are particularly beautiful pieces of crystallised mineral or ore with subjects added from miners’ everyday life, resting on costly bases. There are hardly more than a dozen of these rare examples of mountain art left in the world.

The cabinet of mountain curiosities at the Leogang Mining and Gothic Museum has two hand stones with added pannier carriers on display, created by Simon Troger in his Tyrolean workshop in the 18th century.

First there is a large figure with a hat, its face made from ivory or bone, walking on a hill made of minerals and stone. You can recognise smoky quartz, mica schist and actinolite (from the Greek for ‘shining stone’) but also a small piece of amethyst, polished carnelian and fossilised snails and corals. The hand stone and figure rests on a wooden, contoured base.

The second hand stone from the workshop of the Tyrolean master craftsman is similar: a mineral and stone hill on a semi-circular carved gilt base. Here too can be found smoky quartz, pieces of marble, a typically tapered actinolite, polished carnelian and fossilised coral and mussels. On the top is a large figure with a tall hat, its face and hands made of ivory or bone.

Both hand stones are on loan from the Spängler bank in Salzburg.

Several of the famous Herrengrund copper receptacles are on show in the cabinet of mountain curiosities at the Leogang Mining and Gothic Museum.

Made from cement copper, a by-product of copper extraction from copper-weak ore, these rare treasures are named after Špania Dolina (‘Herrengrund’ in German), a few kilometres north of Banská Bystrica in the Slovak Ore Mountains.

It was rather by accident that the occurrence of cementation was discovered here in a local copper mine in 1605. If iron pieces are laid in mountain water rich in copper sulfate, basic copper can be removed thanks to ion exchange. At the time this was considered a miracle and the resulting cement copper was made into an array of receptacles by regional silver and coppersmiths before being fire-gilt, often engraved and sometimes decorated with little silver mining symbols.

Today Herrengrund copper receptacles are rare and sought-after historic mining treasures.

The quality of the silver from the mines in medieval Leogang was excellent and it was used for minting gold and silver coins by the Salzburg archbishops, whose archbishopric was both imperial estate and mint estate of Bavaria.

Salzburg coins from around 1500 are closely connected with one name in particular, Archbishop Leonhard von Keutschach. When he came to power shortly before 1500, the domestic coinage and monetary system was in a state of disrepair.

Salzburg was in possession of huge amounts of gold and silver deposits, among the largest in Europe. But since nearly all the noble metal had been sold to Venice by a trading company there was a state-wide lack of coinage. Not a single coin had been minted for over 30 years.

Foreign money was coming into Salzburg but this was not enough to fulfil the demands of the economy. Leonhard von Keutschach had to act. Against the will of the powerful trading companies, he put a stop to the export of gold and silver and from then on had Salzburg’s noble metal made into its own coinage.

In earlier centuries it was almost exclusively small silver coins, called pfennigs, that were minted. If somebody wanted to pay a large sum they would have to use hundreds or even thousands, which was very impractical. The well-off were known to use silver bars or foreign gold coins for such payments.

Leonhard von Keutschach put a stop to all this. He introduced a modern system with different sizes and values of coin in gold and silver. Pfennigs remained, as the currency of the average Joe.

Batzen were favoured for medium-sized payments. They were worth 16 pfennigs. For larger payments it was possible to use gold gulden. They were worth the same as 240 pfennigs, a week’s salary for a paid mine worker. Only a few people would ever hold one of these in their hand.

Leonhard von Keutschach’s most famous coin was the turnip thaler, the first Salzburg silver coin to be worth the same as a gulden. The archbishop used the turnip thalers as presents rather than payments. Why were they called turnip thalers? Because of the turnip in the archbishop’s coat of arms. The same turnip could be found on all of Leonhard von Keutschach’s coins.

From the Middle Ages on, high quality medals and coins, desired throughout the empire, were created at the Salzburg mint. Renowned medallists such as Peter and Paul Seel, Philipp Heinrich Müller, Philipp Christoph Becker, Georg Raphael Donner and various generations of the Matzenkopf family created medals and coins which acquired an excellent reputation beyond the borders of Salzburg and still go for top prices at auction today.