Huguenin Frères of Le Locle produced this piece for the Benedictine Abbey of Einsiedeln, one of the most significant pilgrimage sites in the Catholic world and a destination drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors annually to its Black Madonna. These abbey-sanctioned silver issues circulated as devotional souvenirs rather than legal tender, occupying a peculiar numismatic category — neither exonumia in the dismissive sense nor coinage in any official one.
The X# prefix in the Krause catalog designates it as a "fantasy" or semi-official local issue. Huguenin held a long-standing specialty in such ecclesiastical and commemorative strikes for Swiss religious institutions.
Huguenin Frères of Le Locle produced this piece for the Benedictine Abbey of Einsiedeln, one of the most significant pilgrimage sites in the Catholic world and a destination drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors annually to its Black Madonna. These abbey-sanctioned silver issues circulated as devotional souvenirs rather than legal tender, occupying a peculiar numismatic category — neither exonumia in the dismissive sense nor coinage in any official one.
The X# prefix in the Krause catalog designates it as a "fantasy" or semi-official local issue. Huguenin held a long-standing specialty in such ecclesiastical and commemorative strikes for Swiss religious institutions.