1 Stiver - Charles II

Charles II of Spain, who held the County of Flanders as part of the Spanish Netherlands inheritance, was a ruler so physically and mentally debilitated by generations of Habsburg inbreeding that effective governance fell almost entirely to a succession of governors-general in Brussels. The Flemish mints operated with considerable autonomy during his reign, and the billon stiver issues of 1679–1680 fall within a period of monetary retrenchment following the Treaty of Nijmegen, which had ceded the Franche-Comté and numerous Flemish border towns to Louis XIV just the year prior.

The Bruges mint — indicated by the BG suffix in the Vanhoudt reference — struck this type alongside Ghent and Antwerp, making attribution to a specific facility essential for serious cataloging.