20 Batzens

Zofingen's 20 Batzen of 1717 belongs to a period when Swiss cantonal and municipal minting rights were fiercely guarded despite mounting pressure from Bern to consolidate regional coinage. The city exercised its independent mint privilege sporadically, and large silver multiples like this were struck in small quantities — more for prestige and local financial transactions than everyday commerce.

The Batzen itself had been a denominational standard across the Swiss Confederation since the early sixteenth century, but valuation against other regional currencies remained perpetually contested into the eighteenth.