Obol - Charles II Condé-sur-l'Escaut

Condé-sur-l'Escaut — known in Latin as *Condatum* — sat at a strategically contested crossing of the Scheldt, and coinage struck there under Charles II reflects the administrative fragmentation following the 843 Treaty of Verdun. The years 869–875 bracket a particularly turbulent stretch: Charles briefly seized Lotharingia after the death of Lothair II in 869, only to be forced into the Treaty of Meerssen in 870, which divided that territory with Louis the German.

At roughly three-quarters of a gram, obols from provincial Carolingian mints in this period survive in very small numbers, most having been melted or lost to the chronic silver shortages that plagued the fragmented western Frankish monetary system.