1 Rappen

Aargau had existed as a Swiss canton for barely six years when this piece was struck, carved out of the former Habsburg territories seized by the Helvetic Republic in 1798 and then reorganized under the Act of Mediation in 1803. Cantonal coinage rights granted under that settlement produced a brief, chaotic flowering of local issues across Switzerland before federal consolidation steadily squeezed them out.

The billon alloy — a low-grade silver-copper mix — reflects the perpetual small-change problem of the period, when pure copper was avoided and silver too valuable for fractional denominations.