Thaler - Ferdinand I

Ferdinand I's claim to Hungary was violently contested from the moment he inherited it in 1526 — the same year Suleiman the Magnificent destroyed the Hungarian army at Mohács and killed the previous king, Louis II. For most of Ferdinand's reign, the Ottomans held Buda and a rival Hungarian king controlled Transylvania, leaving Ferdinand ruling a thin western strip of the kingdom from Pressburg. The thalers issued under his name were as much a political assertion as a coin.

By 1553, the Kremnitz mint — one of the few major minting facilities still in Habsburg hands — was the primary source of Hungarian silver coinage.