103698 GERMANY & POLAND. Silesia (Śląsk). Plague of Locusts silver Medal.

103698  |  GERMANY & POLAND. Silesia (Śląsk). Plague of Locusts silver Medal. Issued 1748 for the swarms of locusts of subsequent agricultural damage done by locusts (22mm, 3.60 g, 1h). By Georg Wilhelm Kittel in Wrocław.

 

EIN UNGEBETNER GAST (an uninvited guest...), locust left; in two lines in exergue, AVSFREMDEN / LANDEN (...from foreign lands...) // KOMMT FELD UND WALD ZUR LAST (...becomes a burden to field and forest), swarm of locusts descending left upon a tree-lined horizon. Edge: Plain.

 

Pestilentia in Nummis 100; Storer –; Brettauer 1893; Friedensburg & Seger 4336; GPH 1193. PCGS AU-58. Pleasingly toned, with some brilliance remaining among the fields. A particularly haunting type alluding to the wrath brought about by one of the Biblical plagues.

 

The years of 1748 and 1749 saw great swarms of locusts plaguing parts of Europe, such as Bohemia and Northern Germany, with the pests noted as far as the British Isles. Noted throughout antiquity and even famously referenced in the Bible as one of the plagues of Egypt, the insect's ability to reproduce abundantly and form massive migratory swarms has made it ceaselessly feared, as the agricultural damage left in their wake is often catastrophic.

 

Upload: 19 October 2026.