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10½ Heller
| Issuer | Bocholt, City of |
|---|---|
| Year | 1616 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 101/2 Heller (1⁄120) |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
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| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
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| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Central field displays the Roman numeral X with a half-mark symbol beneath, denoting the denomination of 10½ Heller, all contained within a plain inner circle surrounded by an elaborate ornamental border of repeated foliate and lobe motifs, with a further beaded outer rim. |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Plain |
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| Additional information |
Bocholt's 10½ Heller is a fractional denomination that exists almost entirely because of the chronic small-change shortages that plagued the Holy Roman Empire's smaller municipalities in the early seventeenth century. Cities like Bocholt frequently issued their own emergency copper coinage — Notgeld in the loose early sense — when imperial silver circulation dried up during the disruptions preceding the Thirty Years' War, which broke out just two years after this piece was struck.
The half-heller fraction embedded in the denomination points to a local accounting system no longer in common use elsewhere, a detail that makes this a genuinely peculiar survivor of municipal monetary improvisation.