Grosz gdański - Sigismund I the Old Gdańsk mint

Gdańsk held the right to mint its own coinage under Sigismund I through a series of royal privileges that kept the city's commercial interests firmly tied to the Polish crown while preserving substantial municipal autonomy. The arrangement was perpetually contentious — the city's merchant patriciate lobbied repeatedly to control alloy standards independently, and the crown's periodic assay inspections were resented as intrusions. Surviving examples vary noticeably in silver fineness across the eighteen-year run, almost certainly reflecting those ongoing disputes over who actually controlled the furnace.