Pfennig 'Vierzipfliger'

The Vierzipfliger — "four-cornered" — takes its name from the characteristic clipping pattern produced when the bracteate-thin flan was cut from a strip, leaving four pointed projections at the cardinal points. Habsburg-Laufenburg was a collateral line of the early Habsburgs, controlling the Rhine crossing at Laufenburg, and their pfennig issues of this period reflect the fragmented monetary authority typical of the Upper Rhine in the mid-thirteenth century, where toll rights and minting privileges were inseparable commercial instruments. The county line itself was extinguished by 1408 when the territories reverted to the main Habsburg line.