1 Kreuzer - Henri I cross above the crown

Neuchâtel in 1590 was nominally under the lordship of Henri I de Longueville, a French nobleman whose claim to the county rested on inheritance through the Orléans-Longueville line — a dynasty that held the territory almost entirely in absentia while the actual administration fell to local governors. The billon alloy reflects chronic silver shortages that plagued small Francophone lordships during the later Wars of Religion, when bullion was being hoarded, melted for plate, or drained to pay mercenaries.

The HMZ 2#680d attribution places this among a small series of minor denominations struck under Henri's authority, with Froidevaux's classification adding granularity on die groupings specific to this type.