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Denier Bracteate - Henry II

Issuer Hessen, Landgraviate of
Year 1328-1376
Type Standard circulation coin
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Obverse description Facing bust of a bearded male figure rendered in low relief, centrally placed within a plain raised circular border. The face is depicted frontally in a schematic, medieval style characteristic of Hessian bracteate coinage, with discernible facial features including eyes, nose, and mouth. Four pellets or dots are disposed symmetrically around the bust in the field. The entire design is struck on a thin, single-sided flan typical of bracteate technique.
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Edge Plain
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Henry II of Hessen ruled during one of the most fractious periods of Landgraviate politics, contending simultaneously with the territorial ambitions of the Archbishopric of Mainz and internal dynastic pressures following the division of Hessian lands. Bracteates of this type — struck on a single thin flan so that the design punches through as a mirror image on the reverse — were already an archaic coinage technology by the mid-fourteenth century, persisting in central German territories long after western mints had abandoned them. Their fragility in circulation means intact examples are genuinely uncommon.

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