1/2 Thaler

Lübeck's half thalers of this period were struck under the authority of a city that had spent much of the sixteenth century defending its commercial dominance against the rising power of the Dutch. The Hanseatic League was visibly fracturing by 1580 — Antwerp's sack in 1576 had reshuffled northern European trade routes, and Lübeck was pressing its mint rights aggressively as a marker of continued civic independence.

The fifteen-year span of this type reflects a long-running die series rather than annual recoinage, which accounts for the variation collectors encounter across surviving specimens.