Denier or Rappen

Colmar's civic coinage emerged from the city's position within the Décapole — the loose alliance of ten Alsatian imperial free cities that banded together in 1354 partly to defend their minting privileges against encroachment from territorial princes. The Rappen took its name from the raven type associated with the broader Rappen monetary union that had organized lower Rhenish small coinage since the late fourteenth century, though individual cities retained enough autonomy to strike their own variants.

The extended date range reflects episodic rather than continuous production — municipal authorities authorized striking runs as local commercial demand required, not on any fixed schedule.