Pfennig 'Vierzipfliger Löwenpfennig'

The "Vierzipfliger Löwenpfennig" — four-pointed lion pfennig — belongs to a dense cluster of bracteate-influenced thin silver issues produced by the fragmented Habsburg collateral line seated at Laufenburg on the Rhine. The Laufenburg branch split from the main Habsburg line in the mid-thirteenth century following the inheritance partition of 1239, and their coinage reflects a county perpetually squeezed between more powerful neighbors. At 0.19 g, these were struck at the absolute lower threshold of workable silver, and losses to clipping were effectively irrelevant — there was nothing left to clip.