1/2 Mark - Gustav Vasa Bust type IIIb

Gustav Vasa's later coinage reflects the monetary disorder of his final decade — a sustained debasement campaign that saw Swedish silver content drop sharply from earlier standards as the crown struggled to finance military commitments and administrative consolidation. The .500 fineness of this issue is not accidental; it marks a deliberate policy shift, not a production failure.

The bust type sequence itself documents successive die reworkings ordered as the king aged, making typological placement within the IIIb classification dependent on subtle die-link analysis rather than date alone.