Beleg van Gulik door Albrecht, aartshertog van Oostenrijk, noodmunt met het gewicht van een kwart rijksdaalder, vervaardigd uit ortstaler van Johann II, graaf van Pfalz-Zweibrucken, bestempeld met het Possibly 1621 - 1629

This is a so-called 'siege coin', made of silver during the siege of Gulik by Albrecht, Archduke of Austria. In 1621, when this coin was made, the Dutch Republic was at war with Spain. The Spanish army besieged Gulik, now Jülich in Germany, and during the siege money became scarce. The authorities then decided to make their own emergency money. Existing coins were used for this, in this case a so-called Ortstaler. The coin was cut, and then stamped with the text: 'Obsidio Guliae', siege of Gulik. As a historian, I look at this coin as a valuable source of information about the political and economic circumstances of the time. Numismatic collections and historical archives can tell us more about the production and use of this emergency money. They help us understand the impact of war on the daily lives of people in the 17th century.