Pfennig 'Schwanhälser Vierzipfliger'

The Schwanhälser Vierzipfliger — named for its distinctive four-pointed flan rather than any later collector fancy — was struck by the Habsburg-Laufenburg line, a collateral branch that had split from the main Habsburg dynasty following the 1238 partition of family territories. By the mid-fourteenth century this branch was in chronic financial difficulty, gradually alienating its holdings to the senior Austrian line. The irregular, bracteate-adjacent fabric of these tiny pfennigs reflects local Rhenish minting conventions rather than any Austrian imperial standard.

The Laufenburg mint itself sat on a Rhine island, jurisdiction divided almost comically between the two halves of the town — one Swiss, one German — a division that persists to this day.