Frankfurt struck these gulden during a period when the city was navigating the financial pressures of the Franco-Dutch War, which had destabilized trade networks across the Rhine corridor and forced Frankfurt's merchant council to maintain a credible silver coinage to sustain the city's banking functions. The Free Imperial City had no territorial army to speak of — its security depended entirely on the goodwill of the Emperor and its own commercial weight.
The Dav SG#516 attribution places this firmly within the South German gulden tradition, struck to the Gulden convention weight rather than the later Leipzig standard that would reshape German silver coinage after 1690.
Frankfurt struck these gulden during a period when the city was navigating the financial pressures of the Franco-Dutch War, which had destabilized trade networks across the Rhine corridor and forced Frankfurt's merchant council to maintain a credible silver coinage to sustain the city's banking functions. The Free Imperial City had no territorial army to speak of — its security depended entirely on the goodwill of the Emperor and its own commercial weight.
The Dav SG#516 attribution places this firmly within the South German gulden tradition, struck to the Gulden convention weight rather than the later Leipzig standard that would reshape German silver coinage after 1690.