1/2 Thaler - Ferdinand II Hall

Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria and Count of Tyrol, operated the Hall mint with unusual autonomy — his court at Ambras Castle made Innsbruck-Tyrol a genuine center of Renaissance patronage rather than a provincial outpost. The Hall mint itself had been a primary silver-striking facility since the mid-fifteenth century, fed directly by the silver output of the Schwaz mines, which at their peak in the 1520s accounted for roughly half of Europe's silver supply. By the 1570s Schwaz was in decline, but still productive enough to sustain a serious minting program.

Ferdinand died in 1595, closing this emission's date range and ending one of the more artistically ambitious minting programs in Habsburg peripheral territories.