Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria and Count of Tyrol, governed Further Austria — which included the Landgraviate of Upper Alsace — from Innsbruck until his death in 1595. These thalers were struck at the Ensisheim mint, the administrative capital of Habsburg Further Austria in the region. Ferdinand had a well-documented obsession with art and collecting, founding what became the Ambras Collection, but his Alsatian coinage was purely fiscal in purpose, financing a territory perpetually squeezed between French ambitions to the west and Swiss cantonal pressures to the south.
KLEM 161–170 spans a decade of production with multiple die combinations across the range.
Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria and Count of Tyrol, governed Further Austria — which included the Landgraviate of Upper Alsace — from Innsbruck until his death in 1595. These thalers were struck at the Ensisheim mint, the administrative capital of Habsburg Further Austria in the region. Ferdinand had a well-documented obsession with art and collecting, founding what became the Ambras Collection, but his Alsatian coinage was purely fiscal in purpose, financing a territory perpetually squeezed between French ambitions to the west and Swiss cantonal pressures to the south.
KLEM 161–170 spans a decade of production with multiple die combinations across the range.