6 Stuiver 'Scheepjesschelling' date above crown, piedfort klippe

The scheepjesschelling — "little ship shilling" — was a workhorse denomination of the Dutch provincial coinage system, circulating widely in the maritime trade networks that West Friesland serviced throughout the early eighteenth century. Piedfort klippes of this type are a different matter entirely: struck at roughly double weight on square planchets, they were almost certainly presentation pieces, produced to demonstrate die quality or mark a specific minting occasion rather than for any commercial purpose.

West Friesland maintained its own mint at Hoorn under the Dutch Republic's decentralized coinage authority, which permitted individual provinces to strike their own issues within federally mandated weight and fineness standards.