
Liard of Philip IV, 1645


Details
What could it buy?Indicative
For this period in general, not for this coin in particular.
In 17th-century Antwerp (1601-1700) a master mason earned 72 to 78 pence groot a day in summer and 54 to 58.5 in winter. Counted at 60 pence groot to the gulden, that is 1.2 to 1.3 gulden, or 96 to 104 liards, per summer day. A liard was therefore roughly one hundredth of a master mason's summer day's pay. Indicative: one trade in one city, and the conversion to gulden is a unit of account, not a rate for any particular coin.
Confidence: medium
Sources:
- John Munro, Antwerp building craftsmen's wages 1400-1700 (AntwerpWage.xls) · University of Toronto; built on Herman Van der Wee's data. Wages in pence groot Brabant.
- John Munro, Money and Coinage in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe · Lecture notes; source for 60 pence groot Brabant to the gulden.
The story
Liard from 1645, issued in the Spanish Netherlands under Philip IV. Still clearly legible.

