1⁄12 Thaler - John Frederick Alexander

Wied-Neuwied was a tiny Rhenish county of the Holy Roman Empire whose counts maintained minting rights more as a matter of prestige than economic necessity. John Frederick Alexander ruled from 1737 until his death in 1791, and the 1752–1757 window for this issue likely reflects a brief exercise of those rights during a period when small-denomination silver was in chronic short supply across the fragmented German states — a shortage exacerbated by Seven Years' War financing that was already beginning to destabilize regional monetary networks before the conflict officially opened in 1756.