2 1/2 Soldi

The small silver fractional coinage of Genoa in the 1670s was issued under the Doge system, where the republic's chief magistrate rotated on a two-year term — a deliberate constitutional check against the kind of dynastic ambition that had consumed rival Italian states. This particular denomination sat at an awkward fractional value that made accounting in it genuinely cumbersome, yet the republic persisted with it to satisfy the needs of small street commerce in a city whose merchant class demanded precise small change.

At 0.55 grams, the planchets were notoriously difficult to strike cleanly, and off-center examples are far more the rule than the exception for this type.