A Hanseatic Starting Point: The 1211 Privilege
The first clear “paper trail” for Riga’s coinage points to 1211, when Bishop Albert of Buxhoeveden granted a privilege connected with minting and with keeping Riga’s coins aligned to the weight and fineness standards of Gotland—a serious choice for a city building its position in Baltic trade. In practice, it meant Riga was expected to speak the same monetary language as established commercial hubs, while still using its own designs. A common rule of thumb recorded in later summaries is that 4.5 pfennig marks matched 1 Gotland mark by weight, signaling that Riga’s early coinage was meant to be accepted by merchants who already trusted Gotlandic standards. This is also why Visby, the major trading center on Gotland, often appears as the “prototype” Riga was measured against in early discussions of the privilege.

Feudal Power on the Coin: Archbishops, Then a Shared Mint
When you move forward to coins that can be dated confidently, the story becomes more visible in metal. Under Riga Archbishop John VI Ambundi (1418–1424), Riga’s currency reform era is often represented by the artig, a silver coin type linked to the archbishopric’s minting authority in Riga. These pieces show how strongly political legitimacy and monetary legitimacy overlapped: the issuer’s identity mattered because it told users whose standard stood behind the coin. Numismatic catalogs explicitly connect artigs of this type to Riga as the mint and to Ambundi’s dates, which helps anchor the broader narrative in a concrete object. Over time, minting rights were not static. By the mid-15th century, agreements between major powers in Livonia allowed additional authorities—especially the Livonian Order’s leadership—to participate in coinage, and in calmer periods, minting could be coordinated rather than purely contested.

The 16th Century Expansion: Marks, Groschens, Ducats, and Thalers
From the early 1500s, Riga’s coinage range widened dramatically. Records and later compilations describe the appearance of larger silver coins—marks and groschens—and, at moments, even gold ducats and substantial silver thalers. A commonly cited sequence places gold ducats appearing in the early 1520s and thalers soon after, reflecting Riga’s participation in the broader European move toward high-value, trade-friendly coinage. Riga also had to handle monetary “translation” between systems used by merchants and institutions around the Baltic. For parts of the century, the Gotland-based accounting system is described as especially relevant within Hanseatic commercial logic, while the Lübeck system could operate in parallel and then become dominant in later practice. Even if ordinary people did not calculate in neat formulas, these equivalences mattered because they shaped pricing, contracts, taxes, and the credibility of coins arriving from other mints.

The Free City (1561–1581): When Riga Put Its Status into Circulation
Riga’s brief period as a Free City (1561–1581) is a particularly “readable” phase for coin collectors because the city’s political status translated into a stronger local minting profile. Coins from this era were produced in multiple denominations—from small change for everyday transactions up to larger units suitable for wholesale trade. Numismatic references for Free City issues show how the system was structured, including schillings, marks, and thaler-based pieces, with specific relationships between units recorded for the period. One example is a ½ thaler issue where the denomination is expressed through its equivalent in schillings, illustrating how Riga’s mint tried to keep values intelligible across different users. This is also a reminder that “coinage” is not only about artistry: it is about making sure markets can function smoothly, wages can be paid, and cross-border trade can proceed without constant renegotiation of value.

Polish and Swedish Rule: Riga Money Travels Far—and Changes Along the Way
Under the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (from 1581), Riga’s minting aligned more with Polish monetary practice, where thaler-based accounting and smaller subdivisions such as grosz units became central in how value was expressed. Research on Riga’s Polish-period shillings highlights how mint output and standards could shift over time—especially when large volumes of small change were needed and when bullion pressures pushed mints toward difficult choices on fineness. Under Swedish rule (from 1621), Riga continued producing coinage used across Swedish Livonia, and surviving coins and catalogs show Riga-struck pieces in the solidus/schilling and dreipölker (3-polker) family associated with Queen Christina’s era. What matters for Riga’s story is reach: Riga money did not stay local. Finds and trade use spread these coins widely, while major transactions often leaned on heavier, well-known Western European thalers that merchants trusted for big deals.

From the Great Northern War to the “Livonez”: The Imperial Attempt to Win Trust
The Great Northern War disrupted normal life across the region, and coinage in Riga ceased during the conflict, marking the end of Riga as an active mint in the old sense. In the early Russian Empire period, a practical problem appeared: although imperial currency was the official standard, people in Livonia often preferred familiar thaler-type money for its perceived reliability in trade. The response under Empress Elizabeth Petrovna was strikingly direct: the empire introduced special thaler-like coins for Livonia and Estonia, known in modern descriptions as the Livonese/Livonez, explicitly valued at 96 kopecks and designed to feel recognizable to local users. Surviving examples and catalog descriptions underline this intent by noting the coin’s thaler role and its 96-kopeck equivalence. The plan did not fully achieve the hoped-for popularity, and the special issues were not continued for long—after which Russian currency became the unifying circulating money across Latvia’s territories.

The 20th Century Return: Riga as a Money Center Without a Riga Mint
In the 20th century, Riga returns to the story not as a place where coins are struck inside city walls, but as the place where Latvia’s monetary identity is designed, approved, and later collected. In the First Republic (1922–1939), Latvia introduced a full coin system in santīmi and lati, including iconic silver issues that became national symbols for generations. What is easy to miss is the manufacturing reality: several early Latvian circulation coin types were minted abroad—for example, small bronze denominations were produced by mints in Le Locle (Switzerland) and in Great Britain (including Birmingham and the Royal Mint in London) in different years. That international production model did not reduce the “Latvian-ness” of the money; it simply reflects how a new state used established industrial capacity to get high-quality coinage into circulation quickly. Riga, in this period, functioned as the decision center—where designs, standards, and denominations were set—while the physical striking could happen wherever capacity and contracts made sense.

From Lats to Euro: Latvia’s Modern Coins and Collector Culture
The modern “coin story” becomes especially clear after Latvia restored independence. A temporary currency, the Latvian ruble, was replaced as the national system stabilized; on 5 March 1993 the lats was reintroduced, and the changeover rate was 1 lats = 200 rubles—a practical reset that stayed in place until Latvia adopted the euro. What followed was not only everyday circulating coins, but a strong tradition of collector and commemorative issues curated by Latvijas Banka, with themes that are often Riga- and Latvia-centered. The pattern of minting abroad also continued in a modern form: some euro commemorative coins have been minted by Lithuania’s mint (UAB Lietuvos monetų kalykla), while Latvia also participates in international collector programs where production may be handled by specialized European mints (for example, a “Hansa Cities: Riga” collector coin program is tied to the Finnish Mint). Latvia joined the euro area on 1 January 2014 (the lats remained exchangeable for a short dual-circulation period), and since then, Latvia’s national-side euro coins and €2 commemoratives have become the modern continuation of a Riga-centered numismatic identity—designed for daily use, but collected as history in the making.