Lviv orth from a rare wartime issue.
Very well minted for this type. Even, fully legible. Without the ugly sheet flaws so common to these coins.
Variety with a wider portrait of the king, with a rosette of balls on the king's collar.
Eagles on the reverse of the first type.
Variant with a V on the obverse looking like a Y (FIGURE PRYS 8).
The history of this issue begins after the heroic defense of Lviv against the besieging Moscow and Cossack armies. At a time when more cities of the Crown were falling under the onslaught of the Swedes, it was victorious Lviv that became the destination of King John Casimir. Having reached the city in February, he issued a universal order to open a mint as early as March 1, 1656, out of the need to pay the troops. The silver for the issuance of coins (orts and sixpences) was obtained from seized silver from church treasuries, beginning the minting of coins on May 15 and ending just 37 weeks later!
The coins minted at the time are characterized by poor workmanship, which is typical of wartime issues. The workshop organized in Lviv did not employ mincmasters, but city craftsmen. Coins were minted using the old method, stamps were cut by hand, in a hurry, hence their great variety. These factors translated into rather poor legibility and poor state of preservation of the pieces circulating in the trade. Usually these coins are severely deficient, crookedly minted or with doubled minting, produced from defective sheet metal.
