20 Schillings

Schwyz — the canton that gave Switzerland its name — retained municipal coinage rights well into the late eighteenth century, a jurisdictional anomaly even by the fragmented standards of the Old Confederation. This 20 Schilling piece was struck just four years before the French Revolutionary Wars began dismantling the political arrangements that had made such local emissions possible. The Helvetic Republic, imposed in 1798, abolished cantonal monetary authority almost immediately.