Thaler 'Schanzentaler'

The "Schanzentaler" takes its name from the fortification works Zürich undertook in the early eighteenth century, when the city's magistrates diverted municipal funds toward expanding and modernizing its defensive earthworks — the Schanzen — in response to the turbulence of the War of the Spanish Succession raging across neighboring territories. These thalers were struck specifically to help finance that construction, making them among the rare Swiss civic issues with a directly traceable spending purpose.

Hürlimann records only modest surviving numbers, and examples with full, even strikes across the shield quarters are genuinely difficult to find — the dies were worked hard and often show fatigue before the issue concluded.