Watch List notes:

RUSSIAN MEDALS. THE GREAT NORTHERN WAR, SWEDISH AND GERMAN MEDALS OF RUSSIAN INTEREST. Medal. Silver. 44 mm. By Philipp Heinrich Müller. The Flight of Karl XII to Bendery and the safety of the Ottoman Empire, 1709. Hildebrand 147. Draped, bare-headed bust of Karl XII wearing an elaborate cuirass / Swedish lion lying left sleeping beneath a tree, Turkish crescent moon in the star-filled sky; PER AMICA SILENTIA LVNAE (The friendly silence of the moon), OCVLIS DORMI=TAT APERTIS in ex (He slumbers with his eyes open). Authenticated and graded by NGC MS 62. Superb deep slate-gray toning, a lovely medal rich in symbolism and of Russian, Swedish and Turkish numismatic interest. Choice uncirculated. After Sweden's crushing defeat at Poltava, Karl fled with a small entourage into the Ottoman Empire. At Bendery, in Moldova, Karl set up camp with 1,000 Karoliner. The Turks welcomed Karl, and soon a small village named Karlstadt had to be built near Bendery to accommodate the burgeoning Swedish population. As a gesture of goodwill, Sultan Ahmet III bought some of the captured Swedish women and children out of Russian bondage and turned them over to Karl, helping to further swell the Swedish colony. Eventually, though, the Turks grew tired of Karl's scheming (he incited a war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire); while the local merchants grew irate over the debts he was piling up. In January 1713, the townspeople attacked the Swedish settlement. The janissaries became involved and they captured Karl and placed him under house arrest, first in Dimetoka in Thrace, then Istanbul, where he whiled away the time playing chess and studying the Ottoman navy – his sketches would lead to the construction of two famous Swedish war ships, the Jarramas and the Jildirim. Karl succeeded in leaving his imprisonment in the fall of 1714 and made his way back to Pomerania on horseback.

Estimate: $1000