Szeląg litewski - Jan II Kazimierz Waza Wilno mint

The Lithuanian szeląg issues of Jan II Kazimierz are inseparable from the currency catastrophe that gripped the Commonwealth through the 1660s. Bobrteynka copper coinage — named derisively by the public — was debased so aggressively that it triggered waves of riots, hoarding of older silver, and ultimately the dismissal of Titus Livius Boratini, the Italian entrepreneur-turned-mint-leaseholder who had convinced the Sejm that flooding the market with copper would stabilize state finances after the devastating Swedish and Muscovite wars. It did not.

The Wilno mint's 1665 output fed directly into that collapse. Jan II Kazimierz abdicated in 1668, partly undone by the monetary and political fallout these coins helped cause.