1/2 Bazen

The Canton of the Grisons — Graubünden in German, Grigioni in Italian, Grischun in Romansh — was one of the last Swiss cantons to surrender its monetary independence under the Federal Coinage Act of 1850, which swept away the chaotic patchwork of cantonal issues and imposed a unified Swiss franc. This 1836 piece belongs to the final decade of that independent tradition. The Bazen itself was a denomination with deep roots in the region, its name a corruption of "Petz," the bear on the Bern city arms, which tells you something about how monetary influence traveled through the old Confederation.