Hälbling - Johann III von Vienne

Johann III von Vienne held the see of Basel from 1366 until his death in 1382, a tenure defined largely by his navigation of the competing pressures exerted by the Habsburgs and the city's increasingly assertive burghers. The Hälbling — half a Rappen — was the smallest denomination in regular Rhenish circulation, and examples struck under Johann are among the lightest coins produced by any episcopal mint of the period. At 0.12g, the margin for error in the blanking and striking process was essentially zero, which explains the frequency of off-center or weakly-defined pieces in surviving collections.