1/2 Thaler

Donauwörth's status as a free imperial city was perpetually contested — the city spent much of the sixteenth century fending off the territorial ambitions of the Duchy of Bavaria, which ultimately absorbed it in 1607 after a manufactured religious pretext gave Emperor Rudolf II the excuse to revoke its imperial immediacy. These half thalers were struck during a narrow window when the city still exercised full minting rights, making them among the last autonomous issues before that political unraveling began in earnest.

The MB#2 reference places this among the earliest documented thaler-denomination coinage from the city's mint.