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2 Thalers
| Issuer | City of Basel |
|---|---|
| Year | 1720 |
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| Shape | Round |
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| Obverse description | Within a beaded inner circle, a winged basilisk — the heraldic beast of Basel — stands passant, its body facing right, with the arms of Basel displayed at lower left. The surrounding field is filled with an arrangement of assorted cantonal and allied shields, presented in a decorative heraldic composition characteristic of Swiss city coinage of the early eighteenth century. |
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| Reverse script | Latin |
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| Additional information |
Basel's civic thaler series of the early eighteenth century was issued under the authority of the city council, which jealously guarded its minting rights long after most Swiss cantons had ceded monetary control to territorial princes. The 1720 date falls squarely within a period of Swiss monetary fragmentation — dozens of issuing authorities produced incompatible coinage, complicating trade across cantonal borders in ways that wouldn't begin to be resolved until the Helvetic Republic's short-lived standardization attempts at century's end.
The HMZ 2#98b attribution distinguishes this from the closely related 98a variety; collectors should examine the reverse die carefully, as the two are frequently conflated in older auction records.