Vierer - Sigismund the Rich Meran

Sigismund of Tyrol earned his epithet "the Rich" partly through the systematic development of the Schwaz silver mines in the Inn Valley, which by the 1470s were producing more silver than any other mining operation in Europe. That bullion gave him the means to strike an extraordinary range of denominations, and the Vierer sits at the small end of a coinage program that culminated in Sigismund's pioneering of the large silver Guldiner in 1486 — widely regarded as a direct precursor to the thaler series. The Meran mint was one of several facilities he operated concurrently across Tyrol.