Haldenstein was one of the smallest sovereign entities in the Three Leagues of the Graubünden, a loose Swiss confederacy in which even minor lordships retained coinage rights well into the eighteenth century. Johann Lucius — properly Johann Lucius von Salis — ruled this pocket lordship during a period when such fractional billon pieces served purely local exchange, rarely traveling far beyond the Rhine valley villages under his jurisdiction.
The HMZ reference places this among a thin series of denominations struck across the Salis family's tenure at Haldenstein, the lordship itself passing between family branches through inheritance rather than purchase or conquest.
Haldenstein was one of the smallest sovereign entities in the Three Leagues of the Graubünden, a loose Swiss confederacy in which even minor lordships retained coinage rights well into the eighteenth century. Johann Lucius — properly Johann Lucius von Salis — ruled this pocket lordship during a period when such fractional billon pieces served purely local exchange, rarely traveling far beyond the Rhine valley villages under his jurisdiction.
The HMZ reference places this among a thin series of denominations struck across the Salis family's tenure at Haldenstein, the lordship itself passing between family branches through inheritance rather than purchase or conquest.