Rudolf II held the Hungarian crown from 1576 until his forced abdication in 1608, when his brother Matthias — backed by a coalition of Austrian and Hungarian estates — compelled him to surrender the kingdom after years of erratic governance and his near-total withdrawal from public affairs. These quarter thalers span nearly the entire run of that troubled reign, issued continuously through the Long Turkish War of 1593–1606, a conflict that devastated the Hungarian mining towns whose silver fed the very dies that struck them. Kremnica remained the primary source throughout.
Rudolf II held the Hungarian crown from 1576 until his forced abdication in 1608, when his brother Matthias — backed by a coalition of Austrian and Hungarian estates — compelled him to surrender the kingdom after years of erratic governance and his near-total withdrawal from public affairs. These quarter thalers span nearly the entire run of that troubled reign, issued continuously through the Long Turkish War of 1593–1606, a conflict that devastated the Hungarian mining towns whose silver fed the very dies that struck them. Kremnica remained the primary source throughout.