6 Kreutzers - Beda Angehrn

Beda Angehrn served as Prince-Abbot of Saint Gall from 1767 until the abbey's forcible dissolution in 1805, and these 6 Kreuzer pieces span nearly his entire tenure. The Abbey of Saint Gall held the status of an imperial abbey — directly subordinate to the Holy Roman Emperor rather than any territorial prince — which gave it the legal right to strike coin. That right was jealously maintained even as Swiss ecclesiastical authority eroded through the late eighteenth century.

KM#15 and KM#16 represent distinct die treatments within the same reign, a split the HMZ catalogers recognized early.