4 Guldenthaler

The Guldenthaler denomination was a short-lived experiment in standardizing large silver coinage across the Holy Roman Empire during the late sixteenth century — essentially an attempt to produce a coin worth four times the Reichsthaler in a single strike. Regensburg was one of very few Imperial cities with both the mint authority and the financial standing to issue at this weight, a privilege the city had defended jealously since its mint privileges were confirmed under imperial charter.

Pieces of this size and fineness rarely circulated in the conventional sense; they functioned closer to bullion instruments for merchant banking settlements. The survival rate of undamaged examples reflects that — most were handled by counting houses, not purses.