How Far Back Can We Go? Fifth Edition! Ended At 1461 Waiting On 1460 C. E. (A. H. 864)

Nice!
I thought my grasp of French geography was pretty good, but that one sent me on a hunt for more facts, including why these two places were "joined", and why it was still somewhat independent of royal France in the mid-1600s.

Nevers is in east-central France, between Berry province, which was historically part of royal France, and the Duchy of Burgundy which was a rival of the French crown until 1477 when Duke Charles the Bold died without heir in battle, and Burgundy became part of France. But Nevers did not, so it became a sort of enclave within the kingdom of France.

Rethel lies 300 km to the north, between the Champagne region (again, a part of France from early medieval times), and an area which in medieval times would have been the County of Hainaut, historically aligned with first Burgundy and then the Hapsburg empire.

The two places were joined by the 1290 marriage between Louis I, Count of Nevers, and Joan, Countess of Rethel (thus explaining the odd geographical separation). IN the early 1600s, the Italian house of Gonzaga became involved, when Louis Gonzaga married Henriette of Cleves, who had inherited the duchies of Nevers-Rethel.
Charles IV on this coin was their grandson, and the last Gonzaga duke, as Nevers-Rethel was sold in 1659 to Mazarin, and passed on to France thereafter.

Thank you!
And while we are pondering things about these great coins of the 1650s which have been posted, I am wondering when the "laureate" type portrait was revived in Europe?
On Polish coins, we saw this on Jan Sobieski in the 1680s (very few of his coins show him wearing a crown) and on certain coins of Jan Casimir: all of the copper schillings 1660-66 have this type of portrait, and we will see that large silver coins of 1650-1652 also use a laureate bust, though his silver coins after 1652 tend to show him with a crown.
For Louis XIV of France, we have seen the laureate bust on his silver coins of the 1650s, but a crown on the copper liards.
Cromwell and Charles Gustav have also appeared with the laureate look.

I guess we will see how far back this goes

1653 -- Kingdom of France, 1/2 ecu:

For the Netherlands the "laureate" type portrait goes back to between 1586-1596 when Realen (Ryals) and Daalders (Thalers) with the portrait of Earl of Leicester were minted in 5 provinces.

Robert Dudley, was sent by Elisabeth of England to support the Dutch Revolt against Philip II. These large silver coins are splendid in design and we may see a few examples two months from now.