1/2 Guilder - Philip the Handsome

Philip the Handsome was just eleven years old when his mother Mary of Burgundy died after a riding accident in 1482, leaving him nominal ruler of the Burgundian Netherlands under Maximilian of Habsburg's regency. The years 1489–1492 were particularly fractious — Flemish cities had actually imprisoned Maximilian in Bruges in 1488, and the subsequent political settlement forced concessions that shaped how coinage was issued in Philip's name during this period.

The .792 fineness places this issue slightly below the purer Burgundian gold standards of earlier decades, a quiet fiscal adjustment made during years of municipal resistance and interrupted regent authority.