1/2 Ducat - Frederick I

Frederick I of Hesse-Cassel holds a peculiar distinction: he was simultaneously King of Sweden from 1720 until his death in 1751, having secured that throne through his marriage to Ulrika Eleonora rather than by dynastic right. His Hessian court was funded in no small part by the notorious Subsidienverträge — treaties leasing Hessian troops to foreign powers, a practice that would continue under his successors and eventually draw Hesse-Cassel into the American Revolutionary War controversies of the following generation.

The Fr#1305 reference places this piece within Friedberg's gold coinage corpus for the German states, where Hesse-Cassel fractional ducats of this period are genuinely scarce survivors.