1/2 Kreuzer - Charles August

Nassau-Weilburg in the mid-eighteenth century was a minor Protestant principality perpetually squeezed between larger neighbors and chronically short of revenue. Charles August ruled from 1735 until his death in 1753, and this copper issue belongs to the last years of his reign — a period when the Seven Years' War was still two years off but the surrounding political tensions were already reshaping the smaller Rhenish states. Small-denomination copper struck by these petty German courts rarely circulated far beyond their own borders, which partly explains why survivors tend to show limited wear.