2 Thalers - Rudolf II

Rudolf II held the Landgraviate of Upper Alsace as part of the Habsburg hereditary lands, though he was famously indifferent to administrative governance, spending the bulk of his energies on alchemy, astrology, and his art collections in Prague. The issuance of large-module silver across these years coincides with his prolonged political deterioration — by 1606 his own family was maneuvering to strip him of authority, eventually forcing him to cede Hungary and Austria to his brother Matthias in 1608.

The KLEM and E&L references index eight and nine die combinations respectively across the production span, suggesting consistent but not prolific output from the mint at Ensisheim.