Philip IV inherited the Spanish Netherlands in 1621 at age sixteen and spent virtually his entire reign attempting to fund an unwinnable series of wars — the Thirty Years' War, the Franco-Spanish War, and the ongoing Dutch Revolt — through a treasury that was perpetually bankrupt. The copper liard was the workhorse coinage for petty transactions in Flanders throughout this period, struck across a span of decades precisely because silver was too scarce and too needed elsewhere to serve ordinary commerce.
The thirty-six year emission window for KM#36 means dies, moneyers, and mint supervision changed repeatedly, producing considerable variation in planchet quality and strike consistency across the run.
Philip IV inherited the Spanish Netherlands in 1621 at age sixteen and spent virtually his entire reign attempting to fund an unwinnable series of wars — the Thirty Years' War, the Franco-Spanish War, and the ongoing Dutch Revolt — through a treasury that was perpetually bankrupt. The copper liard was the workhorse coinage for petty transactions in Flanders throughout this period, struck across a span of decades precisely because silver was too scarce and too needed elsewhere to serve ordinary commerce.
The thirty-six year emission window for KM#36 means dies, moneyers, and mint supervision changed repeatedly, producing considerable variation in planchet quality and strike consistency across the run.