1/2 Thaler - Rudolf II Joachimsthal

Rudolf II moved the imperial court from Vienna to Prague in 1583, making Bohemia the administrative heart of the Habsburg empire for the next two decades. The Joachimsthal mint — the same facility whose output had given the word "thaler" to European monetary vocabulary — continued striking under Rudolf throughout this period, though output fluctuated considerably with the silver supply from the St. Joachim valley mines, which were well past their sixteenth-century peak by the 1580s.

The MB#262 reference covers the full span of Rudolf's Bohemian issues from this mint across nearly two decades, meaning individual pieces within the type can vary meaningfully by die work and mintmaster.