¼ Thaler - Matthias II Joachimsthal

Matthias II was crowned King of Bohemia in May 1611 after forcing his brother Rudolf II to abdicate — a dynastic rupture that left the Habsburg family visibly fractured on the eve of the Thirty Years' War. The Joachimsthal mint, operating in the silver-rich Erzgebirge region whose ore deposits had literally given the world the word "dollar" (from Joachimsthaler), struck this issue in the first year of his Bohemian reign. Joachimsthal's output in this period was significant but increasingly overshadowed politically by the tensions that would erupt catastrophically within six years of this coin's minting.