The Grisons — Graubünden in German, Il Grischun in Romansh — joined the Swiss Confederation as a full canton only in 1803 under the Act of Mediation imposed by Napoleon, ending centuries of existence as the loose Three Leagues federation. This coin belongs to the brief window of autonomous cantonal coinage that followed, before the Federal Coinage Act of 1850 consolidated Swiss monetary production and rendered all cantonal issues obsolete. The Batzen itself was a unit inherited from the old Confederation, and fractional billon pieces like this one handled the lowest tier of daily commerce in a mountainous region where hard currency moved slowly.
The Grisons — Graubünden in German, Il Grischun in Romansh — joined the Swiss Confederation as a full canton only in 1803 under the Act of Mediation imposed by Napoleon, ending centuries of existence as the loose Three Leagues federation. This coin belongs to the brief window of autonomous cantonal coinage that followed, before the Federal Coinage Act of 1850 consolidated Swiss monetary production and rendered all cantonal issues obsolete. The Batzen itself was a unit inherited from the old Confederation, and fractional billon pieces like this one handled the lowest tier of daily commerce in a mountainous region where hard currency moved slowly.