Groschen - Philip IV

Philip IV inherited the Spanish Netherlands at seventeen and never once visited his Burgundian territories, leaving monetary policy to a succession of governors who repeatedly debased the billon coinage to fund the Eighty Years' War. The groschen issues of this period reflect that pressure directly — silver content dropped sharply across the 1620s as the drain of sustained military campaigning against the Dutch Republic made fineness a secondary concern to volume of output.

The fourteen-year striking window for this type spans the worst of the Flemish fiscal deterioration, with later dies generally producing noticeably baser metal.