Mintmaster mark
maker's mark
Mintmaster marks (German: Münzmeisterzeichen, abbreviation Mmz.) are often the initials of the mintmaster of a mint or small symbols (cross, star, coat of arms, heraldic device, etc.) for example at the size of the letters on a coin inscription to denote the coins made under his direction. With his mark, the mintmaster assumed responsibility for ensuing the coins issued by his mint were in accordance with the regulations. Mintmaster marks were used as early as the time of bracteate coinage in the Holy Roman Empire, but these can only rarely be deciphered. All mintmaster marks since the beginning of the minting of Thalers have been identified.
The picture on the right shows the mintmaster's mark, an acorn on a stem, of the Dresden mintmaster, Constantin Rothe, on a Reichstaler issued under Duke John George II of Saxony from the year 1662.
Variants
Sometimes there are pictographs and letters on a coin. In this case, the pictorial symbol is usually found in the circumscription of the coin and the letters are divided in the field on both sides of the coin's crest. Mintmasters often used their coats of arms as mintmaster symbols. For example, in the Electorate of Saxony:
Constantin Rothe, mintmaster from 1640 to 1678 in Dresden, put the letters C-R on his coins and also the acorn on a stem from his family coat of arms.
Andreas Alnpeck, the last mintmaster of the Freiberg Mint, used a six-pointed star from 1546 to 1555 and from 1554 to 1555 also the eagle's head from his coat of arms as the mintmaster's mark.
The public source identifies “Mintmaster mark” as maker's mark. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Mintmaster, mark and maker's.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1303241. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1662, 1640, 1678 and 1546.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mintmaster mark” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.