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Pfennig Bracteate
| Issuer | Krosno, City of |
|---|---|
| Year | 1621-1622 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 1 Pfennig (1⁄288) |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | City arms composed of two conjoined shields displayed side by side beneath a horizontal bar surmounted by a decorative element, the left shield bearing an eagle and the right shield bearing a stylized fleur-de-lis or trefoil device. Below the shields appears the initial letter C, serving as a city or mintmaster identification mark. The design is struck in bracteate technique, producing a single-sided thin flan with the image in high relief on the obverse and a mirrored incuse impression visible on the reverse. The irregular flan edge shows characteristic clipping typical of hammered bracteate coinage of the early seventeenth century. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Plain |
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| Additional information |
Krosno — then part of the Silesian duchy system under Habsburg suzerainty — issued emergency bracteate pfennigs during 1621–1622 amid the monetary chaos unleashed by the Kipper und Wipper crisis, a speculative debasement spiral in which mints across the Holy Roman Empire raced to produce underweight, debased small coinage for short-term fiscal gain. Municipalities and minor lordships struck their own emergency issues precisely because the currency system had become so corrupted that local authorities could no longer trust imperial coinage for everyday transactions.
The bracteate form itself — a thin, single-die struck piece — was already archaic by the seventeenth century, a deliberate return to a medieval format driven entirely by metal scarcity.