10 Kreuzers - Franz II

Franz II assumed the imperial title in 1792, the same year this issue began — weeks after the execution of his aunt Marie Antoinette's closest allies and with revolutionary France already at war with Austria. The Habsburgs needed functioning coinage badly; the wars of the First Coalition were hemorrhaging treasury reserves at a pace that would eventually force repeated debasements across the silver series.

The .500 fineness here was itself a compromise, down from earlier Habsburg silver standards. By 1797, the Treaty of Campo Formio had ended the First Coalition on deeply unfavorable terms for Austria, and the monetary pressures that followed effectively closed out this type.