1⁄16 Thaler

Dortmund's autonomy as an Imperial Free City was already fraying badly by the mid-seventeenth century. The Thirty Years' War had devastated its trade networks and drained municipal finances, and these small silver fractions were struck partly to address a chronic shortage of usable small change during the occupation-disrupted years following Westphalia. The city would lose its practical independence to Brandenburg-Prussia within decades of this issue.