Thaler

The thaler was a silver coin used throughout Europe for almost four hundred years. Its name lives on in the many currencies called dollar and until recently, also the Slovenian tolar.

For the first time the name "thaler" was used as an abbreviation of "Joachimsthaler", a coin type from the town of Joachimsthal in the Kingdom of Bohemia, where silver mines were opened and the first such coins minted in 1518. The original Czech thaler carried a lion, the Czech coat of arms (of the Kingdom of Bohemia) on its reverse side as well as the Dutch daalders, the leeuwendaalder ("lion thaler"). From there, the name of the Balkan countries currencies (Romanian, Moldovan Leu and Bulgarian Lev).