Historic coin fetches 1.9 million

A fifteen-ducat coin dating back to the period of Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Matthias (1612-1619) sold in auction in Prague on Saturday for the reserve price of 1.9 million crowns not including a surcharge of 17 percent, Roman Veselý, from the Aurea auction house told CTK. The amount is close to the record price of over two million crowns for which a ten-ducat coin, also from Emperor Matthias´s era, was sold earlier. The historic coin was minted in Prague. Two additional rare coins put up for auction went unsold. One was Czech nobleman Jindřich Šlik´s ten-ducat coin from 1642, of which only two are known to have survived; it was offered for a reserve price of 900,000 crowns.