The differences between 19th century Shooting Thalers and 20th century Shooters

First off, lets start with saying that both are rare do to low mintages. One of the major differences, is that the 20th century Shooters were minted in gold and silver. The 18th century Shooters were minted only in silver. Now I will bring up the other major differences. Within the 18th century Shooters only three are true coins, and are very rare and command very large premiums in mint state grades. The three I'm talking about, are the 1842 4 Franken from the Canton of Graubünden. And the 1847 40 Batzen from the Canton of Glarus. The 1855 Solothurn (which was legal tender) was minted for the first all Canton Shooting Festival in a denomination of 5 Francs. The other 14 commemorative pieces were never given legal tender status. The government gave the ok for the denomination to be added, but never gave them legal tender status. It was only given to indicate that the pieces were of the same size, weight and fineness of the legal tender 5 Francs. If I've lost you so far, here is the answer. Three are legal tender coins. The other 14 pieces, well being called Thalers, also have the 5 Francs denomination on them. But, they are Medallic coins.
The 19th century Shooters are highly sought after, and are rich in history.

Lets take a look at the 20th century Shooters.
The medallic coins minted in 1934, 1939 and the 1998 Copper-Nickel Albisgutli Centennial (Zurich City) were the last to use the 5 Francs denomination on them. The silver issued 1998 Albisgutli Centennial (Zurich City) was the only piece to use the 20 Francs denomination. All the other silver pieces used the 50 Francs denomination.
The gold pieces minted in 1934 and 1939 had the 100 Francs denomination on them. The 1998 Albisgutli Centennial had the 200 Francs denomination on it. All other gold issues had the 500 and 1000 Francs denomination on them.

Side note:
The 1934, 1939 and the 1998 Copper-Nickel piece, used the same 5 Francs denomination that the 19th century pieces used. But the 1934, 1939 and 1998 Copper-Nickel piece are smaller. All of the 20th century pieces are not called Shooting Thalers. They are called medals or Shooters or Shooting medallic coins. The 19th century Shooters hold the title of Shooting Thalers.

Technically, none of them are really shooting talers. I have no idea what the technical term would be. I guess shooting five francs? That just doesn't have that ring to it!

This I know, as I've wrote many articles on the Swiss Shooting Talers. You told me you had an interest in them, so I wrote this mainly for you, to give you a little more info. about them. The reason the 19th century shooters are call Talers, is do to the size being close to the Taler. Only three are legal tender. I forget how many Fraken and Batzen made a Taler. Also, just like the German 3 Mark,..which was still called a Taler by the German people in Germany untill the 1930's. The 5 Francs was also called a Taler. In which year they stoped being called a Taler by the people I do not remember. This is how the name stayed with the 19th century Shooters.

As for the technical term, they are medals with a denomination on them. They were used as money at the shooting events only. The same holds true for the 20th century shooters.

Krause calls them semi-medallic issues, whatever that means. Interestingly enough, shooting talers were not the only commemoratives to be demonetized. The 1939 5 franc that commemorates the Zürich Exposition was only legal tender during the exposition, just like the post-1855 shooters. I've decided to limit my collection only to the non-legal tender shooting talers for now, as the 3 cantonal issues and Solothurn are just too far up in the air for me. I just ordered a 1934 Fribourg, though!

The 1934 Fribourg has a very nice design. All of the issued Shooter were used as coins during the events as I stated in the article. This is one fact that Krause hints at. I got most of my info back in the 90's going to shooting events. This weekend I will scan and upload pics I have of one of the events I shot at.

You went to a Swiss Schützenfest? From the few pictures I've seen, they certainly look very interesting! Was there a large, wooden eagle there?

I use to shoot at the Coors Schutzenfest, and the longe range (600yrd) shoots in NM. Here is a pic of one of my rifles I used at the events. It is a Sharps .40cal. with a 1,200 yrd Tang Sight. I will post more photos when I get them scaned. This pic was shot with flim. I met some German and a few Swiss shooters at these events. I got alot of history on the German and Swiss events.

You weren't given any medals, were you?