(sold for $9.0)

1853, Kingdom of Belgium, Leopold I. Medallic Copper 10 Centimes Coin. aXF!

Mint Year: 1853 Reference: KM-XM1.1. Designer: Leopold Wiener Condition: Lightly cleaned in the past, otherwise about XF! Denomination: 10 Centimes - Marriage of the Duke and Duchess of Brabant! Material: Copper Diameter: 33mm Weight: 19.8gm

Obverse: Bust of Leopold I left. Small date (1853) below. Legend: LEOPOLD PREMIER ROI DES BELGES   Reverse: Conjoined heads of the Duke (the later King Leopold II) and Duchess (Marie   Henriette Anne of Austria) of   Brabant. Legend: L.L.PH..M.V. DUC DE BRABANT - M.H.A. DUCHESSE DE BRABANT Comment: Designer's signature (LEOP. WIENER) below. Exergue: 21 22 AOUT

Leopold I (Leopold George Christian Frederick; German: Leopold Georg Christian Friedrich; Prince of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, later Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Duke of Saxony;   16 December 1790 â€" 10 December 1865) was from 21 July 1831 the first   King of the Belgians. He was the founder of the Belgian line of the   House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. His children included Leopold II of Belgium   and Empress Carlota of Mexico.

He was born in Coburg and died in Laeken.

He was the youngest son of Franz Frederick Anton,   Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld and Countess Augusta Reuss-Ebersdorf, and   later became a prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha after the territorial   swap by his father of Ehrenburg Castle in the Bavarian town of Coburg.   He was also an uncle of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.

In 1795, as a mere child, Leopold was appointed   colonel of the Izmaylovsky Imperial Regiment in Russia. Seven years   later he became a major general. When Napoleonic troops occupied the   Duchy of Saxe-Coburg in 1806 Leopold went to Paris. Napoléon offered   him the position of adjutant, but he refused. Instead he took up a   military career in the Imperial Russian cavalry. He campaigned against   Napoléon, and distinguished himself at the Battle of Kulm at the head   of his cuirassier division. In 1815, at the age of 25, Leopold reached   the rank of lieutenant general in the Imperial Russian Army.

In Carlton House on 2 May 1816, he married Princess   Charlotte Augusta of Wales, the only legitimate child of the British   Prince Regent (later King George IV of the United Kingdom) and therefore   heiress to the British throne, and was created a British field-marshal   and Knight of the Garter. On 5 November 1817, Princess Charlotte was   delivered of a stillborn son; she herself died the following day. Had   she lived, she would have become Queen of the United Kingdom on the   death of her father, and Leopold presumably would have assumed the role   later taken by his nephew, Prince Albert, as Prince Consort of Great   Britain, and never chosen King of the Belgians. Despite Charlotte's   death, the Prince Regent granted Prince Leopold the British style of Royal Highness by Order-in-Council on 6 April 1818. In honor of his first wife,   Leopold and Louise-Marie of France, his second wife, named their first   daughter Charlotte, who would later become Empress Carlota of Mexico.

On 2 July 1829, Leopold participated in nuptials of   doubtful validity (a private marriage-contract with no religious or   public ceremony) with the actress Caroline Bauer, created Countess of Montgomery,   a cousin of his advisor, Christian Friedrich Freiherr von Stockmar. The   'marriage' reportedly ended in 1831 and the following year he married   Louise-Marie at the Château de Compiègne, in Compiègne, France, on 9   August 1832.

After Belgium asserted its independence from the   Netherlands on 4 October 1830, the Belgian National Congress, considered   several candidates and eventually asked Leopold to become king of the   newly formed country. He was elected on 4 June and accepted and became   "King of the Belgians" on 26 June 1831. He swore allegiance to the   constitution in front of the Saint Jacob's Church at Coudenbergh Place   in Brussels on 21 July 1831. This day became the Belgian national   holiday. Jules Van Praet would become his personal secretary.

Less than two weeks later, on 2 August, the   Netherlands invaded Belgium. Skirmishes continued for eight years, but   in 1839 the two countries signed the Treaty of London establishing   Belgium's independence.

With the opening of the railway line between Brussels   and Mechelen on 5 May 1835, one of King Leopold's fondest hopesâ€"to   build the first railway in continental Europeâ€"became a reality.

In 1840, Leopold arranged the marriage of his niece,   Queen Victoria, the daughter of his sister, Princess Victoria of   Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, to his nephew, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and   Gotha, son of his brother, Ernst I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Even   before she succeeded to the throne, Leopold had been advising the   then-Princess Victoria by letter, and after her accession, he was one of   the great influences on her in the early days of her monarchy.

In 1842, Leopold tried unsuccessfully to pass laws to   regulate female and child labor. A wave of revolutions passed over   Europe after the deposition of King Louis-Philippe from the French   throne in 1848. Belgium remained neutral, mainly because of Leopold's   diplomatic efforts.

He was the 649th Knight of the Order of the Garter in   1816, the 947th Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece in Spain in   1835 and the 35th Grand Cross of the Order of the Tower and Sword.

On 11 October 1850, Leopold again lost a young wife,   as Queen Louise-Marie died of tuberculosis at age 38. At 11:45 am on 10   December 1865, the king died in Laken at the age of 75. He lies buried   in the Royal vault at the Church of Our Lady, Laken Cemetery, Brussels,   Belgium.

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