Count Stephan Schlick minted the first thalers from his silver mine, vanished at Mohács in 1526, and the new king took the mint from his family

Silver was found in the Ore Mountains of Bohemia in 1512. In 1516 Count Stephan Schlick founded a mining town there, Joachimsthal, now Jáchymov. Regular minting began in 1520. The large silver coins were called Joachimsthalers, then thalers, and through the Dutch daalder the name became "dollar." Stephan's name was on the coins from the start. In the 1520s the mint struck over a quarter of a million thalers and smaller coins a year. In August 1526 Stephan fought at the Battle of Mohács, where King Louis II was killed. Stephan was never seen again and very likely died there. Ferdinand I of Habsburg became king of Bohemia. At the Diet in Prague in 1528 he questioned the Schlick family's legal right to run the mint. In September 1528 the Schlicks signed an agreement giving the king control of the mint and the silver business. They kept a share in the business and the profits. The Diet approved it on 28 September 1528. New dies showed the king's authority, and the Vienna Chamber took over supervision. Centuries later Marie Curie used residues of Joachimsthal pitchblende to isolate radium. After the Second World War prisoners mined uranium there for the Soviet nuclear programme. Mining stopped in the 1960s. The town now runs radon spas.