1/2 Ducaton '1/2 Silver Rider' Type 1, date at top reverse

Zeeland's half ducaton was a fractional workhorse of Dutch trade finance, circulating alongside the full ducaton in the ledger-heavy commerce of the VOC and WIC networks. The province struck its own coinage independently under the Union of Utrecht's provisions, which left monetary production decentralized enough that Zeeland's types frequently diverged from Holland's in subtle but catalogable ways — hence the Type 1 distinction tracking the date placement on the reverse.

The 1660s saw Zeeland's mint at Middelburg under sustained pressure to keep pace with demand during the Second Anglo-Dutch War. Delmonte's S#1051 suffix notation flags this as a scarcer subsidiary grouping within the series.