1/2 Groat - Philip the Handsome, Regency

Philip the Handsome was only eleven years old when this coin was struck, ruling the Burgundian Netherlands under regency following the death of Mary of Burgundy in 1482 and the subsequent political turbulence that saw Maximilian I of Habsburg imprisoned by Ghent burghers in 1488. The regency coinage of Holland during this window reflects a county navigating between Habsburg dynastic claims and assertive urban interests that had just, literally, jailed the regent.

Billon issues of this type circulated heavily in petty trade and survive almost exclusively worn. The Vanhoudt 111-DO attribution places it squarely within the transitional Holland series before Philip assumed personal rule in 1494.