(sold for $58.0)

1795, Kingdom of Denmark, Christian VII. Silver "Fire of Copenhagen" Medal. R!

Medallist: Loos Mint Year: 1795 Denomination: Medal - Copenhagen Fire of 1795 Mint Place: Copenhagen (privy mark: crossed mint-hooks) Condition: Edge hits, contact-marks and scratches, otherwise a nicely toned VF-XF! Weight: 13.67gm Diameter: 36mm Material: Silver

Obverse: Tyche (city goddes = personification of Copenhagen) runing out from burning house in the open hands of the King. Neptune (or Poseidon, god of Water) in background extinguishing fire in background. Legend: REDNING VED KONGELIG FADERHULD KIOBENHAVN DEN 5-7 IUNII 1795 Translated: "The rescued Borges Thanks Rescued by Royal Father Copenhagen 5 & 7 June 1795". Reverse: A child seating in cropped hay and weaving a wreath. A person and horse in front of emergency tents in background. Medallist´s signature (LOOS) below. Legend: DEN REDDEDE BORGERS TAK

The Copenhagen Fire of 1795 started on Friday, 5 July 1795, at or around 3 pm by the Navy's old base south east of Kongens Nytorv on Gammelholm, in the Navy's magazine for coal and timber, the so-called Dellehave. As the workers had already gone home, a considerable length of time passed before efforts to combat the fire started, and out of fear for theft, the fire hydrants had been removed. The people of Holmen also blocked the civilian fire brigade, possibly in the belief that since it was a military area, the military should take care of it.

There had been an extended period without rain and the dry wood, combined with the storage of rope work and tar, made the fire spread quickly. The wind blew especially strong from east-southeast, and that meant the countless embers were carried through the air into the city. Because of the strong sunlight, small fires were difficult to detect until they have taken hold. This is why the fire spread from Gammelholm to the main magazine along Holmens Canal (Holmens Kanal Danish) and over Holmens Canal to the quarter around Saint Nicolai Church and from there, along Gammel Strand to the area around Nytorv/Gammeltorv.

The fire died out on Sunday, 7 July, around 4 pm. It had destroyed 909 houses and partially damaged 74. Just over 6,000 of the just under 100,000 residents in the capital were made homeless. Fortunately it was summer, and many of the homeless could move into tents or sleep outside. A large number of them took refuge in the ruins of the recently burned-down Christianborgs Castle, the remaining walls of which were so large that an entire family could move into a window niche. The stables were also used as housing.

The fire had, together with Copenhagen's fire of 1728, in effect burned down almost the whole of Copenhagen's medieval and Renaissance heritage, so today there are only a few houses from before the 18th century in that part of the city.

The fire was a strong contributing factor to the foundation of Denmark’s first credit institution, Kreditkassen for Husejerne i Kjøbenhavn, in 1797.

After the fire, a large-scale plan was designed by the city planner Jørgen Henrich Rawert and the construction master Peter Meyn. The plan dictated the newly constructed houses should be made of masonry (instead of being timber framed) and house corners at intersections should be diagonal and the streets straightened, so the fire department's long ladder companies could navigate the streets easier.

em>.

Christian VII (Copenhagen, 29 January 1749 - Rendsborg, 12 March/13 March 1808) was King of Denmark and Norway, and Duke of Schleswig and Holstein from 1766 until his death. He was the son of Frederick V, King of Denmark, and his first consort Louisa, daughter of George II of Great Britain.

He became king on his father's death on 14 January 1766. All the earlier accounts agree that he had a winning personality and considerable talent, but he was badly educated, systematically terrorized by a brutal governor, Detlev Greve zu Reventlow, and hopelessly debauched by corrupt pages, and while he seems to have been intelligent and certainly had periods of clarity, Christian suffered from severe mental problems, possibly schizophrenia.

After his marriage at Christiansborg on 8 November 1766 to his cousin Princess Caroline Matilda (known in Denmark as Queen Caroline Mathilde), a sister of King George III of Great Britain, he abandoned himself to the worst excesses, especially debauchery. In 1767, he entered in to a relationship with the courtisan Støvlet-Cathrine?. He publicly declared that he could not love Caroline Mathilde, because it was "unfashionable to love one's wife". He ultimately sank into a condition of mental stupor. Symptoms during this time included paranoia, self-mutilation and hallucinations. He became submissive to upstart Johann Friedrich Struensee, who rose steadily in power in the late 1760s. The neglected and lonely Caroline Mathilde drifted into an affair with Struensee.

In 1772, the king's marriage with Caroline Mathilde was dissolved by divorce. Struensee was arrested and executed in that same year. Christian signed Struensee's arrest warrant with indifference, and under pressure from his stepmother, Juliana Maria of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, who had led the movement to have the marriage dissolved. Caroline Mathilde, retaining her title but not her children, eventually left Denmark in exile and passed her remaining days in neighbouring Celle. She died of scarlet fever there on May 11, 1775.

The marriage had produced two children, the future Frederick VI and Princess Louise Auguste. However, it is widely believed that Louise was the daughter of Struensee - portrait comparisons have supported this.

Christian was only nominally king from 1772 onwards. From 1772 to 1784, Denmark was ruled by Christian's stepmother Juliana Maria of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, his physically disabled half-brother Frederick and the Danish politician Ove Høegh-Guldberg. From 1784 onwards, his son Frederick VI ruled permanently as a prince regent. This regency was marked by liberal and agricultural reforms but also by the beginning disasters of the Napoleonic Wars.

Christian died in 1808 at Rendsburg, Schleswig, not of fright as some have suggested, but from a brain aneurysm. He was 59.