1/2 Kreutzer

Bern's small billon issues of the early eighteenth century reflect the persistent fractional coinage problem common to Swiss city-states: chronic shortages of low-denomination specie forced repeated small-scale mintings, often at a loss to the issuing authority. By 1732, Bern had long operated as the dominant power in the western Swiss Confederation, and its municipal coinage circulated well beyond the city's own territory. The HMZ 2#2-226f designation places this piece within a well-documented sequence, though individual die varieties within the type remain imprecisely catalogued.