1⁄12 Reichsthaler - Frederick II

Frederick II financed the Seven Years' War — which began in 1756, immediately after this series ended — through aggressive monetary debasement, and this issue sits at the edge of that fiscal deterioration. The billon content here is already a compromise from earlier silver standards, reflecting the mounting costs of the First and Second Silesian Wars of the preceding decade. Prussia's mints at Berlin, Königsberg, Breslau, and Aurich all struck this type, which accounts for the sprawling die variety references in Schrötter and Olding.