Denier Bracteate - Wencezlaus II medium

Wenceslas II inherited a fractured kingdom after his father Přemysl Otakar II was killed at the Battle on the Marchfeld in 1278, and the bracteate issues of his reign reflect a monetary system under sustained political stress — regency instability through the 1280s meant mint supervision was inconsistent, producing the die and weight variations that separate Cach's numbered types within this group. The bracteate format itself, a single-sided hammered fabric of such thinness that the design punches through as a mirror negative on the reverse, was already archaic by Bohemian standards in this period, persisting in regional use well after multi-sided pfennig coinage had displaced it elsewhere in Central Europe.