Pfennig 'Schüsselpfennig'

St. Gallen occupied an awkward political position in the early eighteenth century — a free imperial city administratively distinct from, yet geographically entangled with, the powerful Abbey of St. Gallen. The city maintained its own coinage rights precisely to assert that distinction. These bracteate-style schüsselpfennige, struck on thin concave flans from a single die, were a deliberately archaic format by 1709, already centuries out of fashion elsewhere in the Swiss Confederation.

At 0.25 g the silver content was negligible even by billon standards of the period.