1/4 Groschen Spadin - Frederick IV

Frederick IV ruled Lorraine during a period when the duchy was threading a difficult course between the competing pressures of the French crown and the Holy Roman Empire. The spadin — a thin, bracteate-influenced fractional struck in the Lotharingian tradition — circulated primarily in local markets where the full groschen was too large a denomination for everyday exchange. Flon's attribution places this among the earliest documented fractional issues of the duchy, making the survival of any example in collectible condition genuinely uncommon given its original purchasing power and the wear inherent to small-denomination daily use.