20 Kreuzer

Solothurn's 20 Kreuzer coinage of the 1780s was produced under the authority of the Catholic city-state at a moment when the Swiss Confederation's monetary system was a patchwork of cantonal issues, with no fewer than a dozen minting authorities producing incompatible denominations. The canton had maintained its own mint since the medieval period, and the aristocratic council guarded that privilege jealously against recurring federalist pressure to rationalize coinage across the Confederation — a consolidation that would not actually arrive until 1850.