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2 Assis
| Issuer | City of Basel |
|---|---|
| Year | 1623-1638 |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Thaler (1621- 1798) |
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| Obverse description | Central field displays the arms of Basel: a crowned shield bearing the Basel crozier (black crosier on white field), topped by a crested helm with ornate mantling. Three pellets appear above the shield. The whole is enclosed within a beaded inner border, with the circular legend MONETA NOVA BASILIENSIS reading around the periphery in Latin capital letters. The hammered flan gives a slightly irregular outline characteristic of early 17th-century municipal coinage. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse lettering | ASSIS DUPLEX 1623 CONSERVAT PAX DOMINE |
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| Additional information |
Basel struck these billon assis during a period of acute monetary fragmentation across the Swiss Confederation, when individual cities routinely issued their own fiduciary coinage to plug gaps left by the chronic shortage of small-denomination silver. The billon content — debased silver alloyed heavily with copper — was a deliberate choice, not a degradation; it kept production economical while maintaining nominal credibility against the flood of foreign petty coinage circulating illegally in Basel's markets.
The fifteen-year production window spanning 1623–1638 brackets the worst years of the Thirty Years' War, during which Basel's position on the Rhine made it both a commercial conduit and a target for currency manipulation by surrounding belligerents.