Pfennig - Albert II Oberzeiring

Albert II ("the Lame") ruled Styria during a period when the Habsburgs were consolidating control over their Austrian duchies, and small silver pfennigs like this one circulated alongside a chaotic mix of regional issues that made commerce genuinely difficult across duchy boundaries. Oberzeiring, a silver-mining town in the Upper Murtal, had been a significant mint site since the thirteenth century, its output directly tied to local ore extraction rather than centralized fiscal policy.

By the mid-fourteenth century, Oberzeiring's mining output was already declining — the seams that had made it productive were largely exhausted before Albert's reign ended in 1358.