Bluzger - Johann Rudolf

The Lordship of Reichenau — a small secular jurisdiction carved from the ancient Benedictine abbey's temporal holdings on the Lake Constance island — issued this tiny billon piece under Johann Rudolf during a window when the abbey's political standing was in steep decline. The Swiss Confederation had long pressured the territory, and coinage rights were exercised with increasing defensiveness in these years, producing minor denominations in limited quantity before such privileges were absorbed entirely.

The bluzger denomination itself was a relic of the lower Rhine monetary tradition, surviving in Swiss and southwest German peripheral lordships long after disappearing elsewhere.