2 Mites - Philip II

Philip II inherited the Seventeen Provinces from his father Charles V in 1555 and almost immediately faced the fiscal strain of managing the most commercially active territory in northern Europe on a Spanish imperial budget. The mite — a fractional billon or copper piece — was the workhorse denomination of Flemish daily trade, and the double issue existed precisely because single mites had become too small to handle reliably at market stalls and toll gates.

The GH#229-7b variety falls within a brief window before the monetary edicts of 1562 tightened coin specifications across the Low Countries provinces.