1595, Poland, Sigismund III Vasa. Silver 3 Groszy. R!

Mint Place: Fraustadt (Wschowa)
Denomination: Triple Groszy (3 Groszy)
Reference: Kopicki 1000 (R!), Iger W95.4c (R!).
Mint Year: 1595 (date at the end of obverse legend!)
Condition: Two small oxidation spots in obverse, otherwise a nice VF+
Diameter: 20mm
Material: Silver
Weight: 2.34gm

Obverse: Crowned and armored bust of Sigismund III Vasa in ruff right.
Legend: . SIG III . D : G . REX . PO . M . D . L . 9 . 5 .

Reverse: White Eagle and Knight Vytis flank tiny city Arms, 3-line denomination.
Legend: . III . / (white eagle) (shield) (rider) / GROS . ARG . / . TRIP . REG . / POLONIAE . (rose) . (lion shield) . # . / I - F

Wschowa (Fraustadt) is a town in the Lubusz Voivodeship in Poland. Wschowa was originally a border fortress in a region disputed by the Polish dukes of Silesia and Greater Poland. After German colonists had established a settlement nearby, it received Magdeburg rights around 1250. The Old Polish name Veschow was first mentioned in 1248, while the Middle High German name Frowenstat Civitas first appeared in 1290. After the Silesian Piast dukes had gradually accepted Bohemian suzerainty, King Casimir III the Great in 1343 finally conquered it for Poland. The ziemia Wschowa then was incorporated into the Greater Polish Poznań Voivodeship of the Polish Crown. Wschowa and its Latin school was one of the centres of the Protestant Reformation in Poland and a retreat for religious refugees in the days of the Counter-Reformation in adjacent Habsburg Silesia. The Battle of Fraustadt occurred at Wschowa on February 3, 1706 during the Great Northern War, when Swedish forces defeated a joint army of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Saxony and Russia. Within the Second Partition of Poland in 1793, Wschowa was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia and incorporated into the province of South Prussia, until in 1807 it was awarded to the Duchy of Warsaw according to the Treaty of Tilsit. A part of the Grand Duchy of Posen from 1815 on, the town was again incorporated into the Prussian Province of Posen in 1848. According to the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, Fraustadt remained under German rule and formed the southernmost district of the Posen-West Prussia border province. Since 1945 the area as a result of the 1945 Potsdam Conference again belongs to Poland.

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Sigismund III Vasa (Polish: Zygmunt III Waza) (20 June 1566 – 30 April 1632 N.S.) was Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Polish Crown, a monarch of joined Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from 1587 to 1632, and King of Sweden (where he was known simply as Sigismund) from 1592 until he was deposed in 1599. He was the son of King John III of Sweden and his first wife, Catherine Jagellonica of Poland. He was the last ruler of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth bearing a dynastical blood of House of Gediminas and a branch of it Jagiellons, although from female line.

Elected to the throne of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Sigismund sought to create a personal union between the Commonwealth and Sweden (Polish-Swedish union), and succeeded for a time in 1592. After he had been deposed in 1595 from the Swedish throne by his uncle, Charles IX of Sweden and a meeting of the Riksens ständer (Swedish Riksdag), he spent much of the rest of his life attempting to reclaim it.

Sigismund remains a highly controversial figure in Poland. His long reign coincidenced with the apex of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth's prestige, power and economic influence. On the other hand, it was also during his reign that the symptoms of decline that led to the Commonwealth's future demise surfaced. Common views, influenced by popular books of Pawel Jasienica, tend to present Sigismund as the main factor responsible for initiating these negative processes, while academic historians usually are not that condemning. However, the question whether the Commonwealth's decline was caused by Sigismund's own decisions or its roots were in historical processes beyond his personal control, remains a highly debated topic.

He was commemorated in Warsaw with Zygmunt's Column, commissioned by his son and successor, Wladyslaw IV.

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