Dwutalar koronny - Stefan Batory Olkusz mint

Stefan Batory's double talar of 1580 from Olkusz was struck at a moment when the mint there was operating under considerable pressure — the king had dramatically reorganized royal minting operations in the late 1570s to fund his Livonian campaigns against Ivan the Terrible, and Olkusz, sitting atop the richest silver-bearing lead ore deposits in the Commonwealth, was a primary engine of that war financing. The campaigns succeeded; Pskov and Polotsk were taken.

Kop. 545 is among the rarer Olkusz double talar varieties of this reign. At 57 grams, these were never pocket change — they functioned as diplomatic and mercantile instruments, and survivors in honest circulated condition are considerably more typical than cabinet pieces.