1/2 Ducaton - Philip IV

Artois sat at the epicenter of the Thirty Years' War by 1635, the year France formally declared war on Spain and immediately targeted the Spanish Netherlands. Philip IV's administration struck this half ducaton as the county was actively being contested — French forces would take Arras just four years later, and the 1659 Treaty of the Pyrenees would permanently transfer Artois to France, ending Spanish minting authority there entirely. Coins of this issue saw circulation in a province that changed hands through one of the most consequential border settlements in early modern European history.