1/2 Dicken 'Zwölfer'

The Zwölfer — literally "twelver" — takes its name from its value of 12 Schilling in the local accounting system, a denomination that sat awkwardly between the larger Taler coinage used for trade and the small billon pieces of everyday commerce. Zürich's city council authorised these strikes in the early seventeenth century partly to address a chronic shortage of mid-range silver, a problem common to Swiss cantons that lacked direct access to major central European silver mines.

The 1608 date places this piece in the years just before the Kipper und Wipper currency crisis swept through the region, when debased coinage from surrounding territories began flooding Swiss markets.