4 Kreuzers / Batzen

St. Gallen struck this issue at the height of the Kipper- und Wipperzeit, the currency crisis that swept the Holy Roman Empire between roughly 1618 and 1623. Municipal and territorial mints across the Empire raced to produce debased small coinage, profiting from the spread between face value and metal content before the inevitable collapse. St. Gallen, as a free imperial city with its own minting rights, participated directly — the two-year window reflected in this date range corresponds almost exactly to the worst phase of the debasement cycle before stricter imperial oversight curtailed the practice.