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1/2 Batzen
| Issuer | City of Konstanz (German States) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1652-1653 |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
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| Obverse description | Central field displays the arms of Konstanz — a quartered shield featuring the city's distinctive gate and cross motif — surmounted by the date 1652 above the shield. A circular beaded inner border frames the device, with the Latin municipal legend running continuously around the outer periphery, separated by dot stops. The composition is characteristic of mid-seventeenth-century German civic coinage, rendered in a bold if somewhat crude hammered style. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Latin |
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| Additional information |
Konstanz struck this small silver piece in the early 1650s under pressure from the monetary chaos that followed the Thirty Years' War. The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 had done nothing to immediately stabilize the fragmented coinage of the German states, and municipal mints like Konstanz continued producing local denominational silver to meet everyday transactional demand that imperial coinage simply wasn't filling at the regional level.
The two-year run of 1652–1653 suggests either a specific civic authorization that lapsed or a rapid exhaustion of the mint's silver supply — Konstanz was a modestly sized imperial free city by this point, lacking the bullion resources of larger minting authorities.