10 Ducats - Ferdinand III Graz

Ferdinand III issued this multiple ducat from the Graz mint at a moment when the Thirty Years' War was grinding toward its final decade, with Imperial finances under severe strain from continuous campaigning. Large gold multiples of this kind were not struck for commerce — they functioned as presentation pieces, diplomatic gifts, and instruments of court patronage, circulated among princes rather than merchants.

Fr#197 is among the rarer Graz-mint multiples of Ferdinand's reign; the inner-Austrian mint at Graz was subordinate in volume to Vienna and Kremnitz, and ten-ducat pieces from any of these facilities represent exceptional strikes even by the standards of the period.