Spagürli

The Spagürli was a Lucerne municipal issue filling a chronic gap in small-change circulation that plagued Swiss city-states throughout the fifteenth century. Lucerne's council authorized these diminutive silver pieces precisely because the fractional denominations produced by larger minting authorities were insufficient for daily market transactions within the city's growing trade economy. The name itself — a diminutive form suggesting something small and slight — reflects the coin's role as the most trivial denomination a Lucerne resident might handle.

The Wielandt reference places this among a tightly documented run of Lucerne municipal issues, with HMZ 2-614b distinguishing specific die characteristics within the type.