1⁄12 Thaler - John William

John William, Elector Palatine and Duke of Jülich-Berg, died in June 1716, meaning this 1714 issue falls within the final two years of a reign that had proved diplomatically exhausting — his court at Düsseldorf had spent decades managing competing Habsburg and Protestant pressures over the Jülich-Berg succession question. The duchy itself was among the most contested territorial inheritances in the Holy Roman Empire, a dispute that had nearly triggered a major European war a century earlier in 1609.

The KM#136.2 designation distinguishes this from a closely related die variety, the differences residing in minor legend spacing.