Ferdinand II died in February 1637, making this 1640 strike a posthumous issue — a common practice in the Habsburg mints where dies bearing a deceased emperor's name continued in use until exhausted or replaced. Graz served as the capital of Inner Austria and maintained its own mint throughout the Thirty Years' War, a conflict Ferdinand II had done more than any other single ruler to escalate through the Edict of Restitution in 1629. That war was still grinding through its final phase when this coin was struck.
The Davenport EC II reference places it among the larger multiple-thaler series, where survival in undamaged condition is complicated by the type's persistent attraction to mounters and cabinet friction from flat storage.
Ferdinand II died in February 1637, making this 1640 strike a posthumous issue — a common practice in the Habsburg mints where dies bearing a deceased emperor's name continued in use until exhausted or replaced. Graz served as the capital of Inner Austria and maintained its own mint throughout the Thirty Years' War, a conflict Ferdinand II had done more than any other single ruler to escalate through the Edict of Restitution in 1629. That war was still grinding through its final phase when this coin was struck.
The Davenport EC II reference places it among the larger multiple-thaler series, where survival in undamaged condition is complicated by the type's persistent attraction to mounters and cabinet friction from flat storage.