1/2 Batzen - Eberhard IV

Königstein was a small imperial county in the Taunus region, and the counts had limited but real minting rights granted under the broader framework of imperial coinage privileges. Eberhard IV was the last Count of Königstein; when he died in 1535 without a legitimate heir, the county passed to the Archbishopric of Mainz. This coin was struck in the final decade of his rule, during which the Protestant Reformation was fracturing the political and ecclesiastical alliances on which small Rhenish lordships depended for survival.

The Batzen denomination itself originated in Bern around 1492 and spread rapidly across the German-speaking lands as a convenient mid-value silver piece. Königstein's adoption of it reflects the denomination's dominance in regional trade by the early sixteenth century.