1/2 Öre - Sigismund of Poland Type I

Sigismund inherited the Swedish throne in 1592 following the death of his father Johan III, but his Catholicism made him immediately suspect to a Lutheran Swedish nobility already looking for reasons to remove him. He was crowned in Uppsala in early 1594 under conditions that effectively neutered royal prerogative. This coin was struck in the narrow window before his uncle Karl — later Karl IX — consolidated opposition and rendered Sigismund's Swedish authority largely ceremonial. By 1599 the Riksdag had formally deposed him.

The Type I designation distinguishes this issue from later variants produced under his name before the deposition was complete.