1/2 Thaler

Hamburg's half thalers of this period were struck while the city navigated the final, grinding years of the Thirty Years' War — a conflict that paradoxically strengthened the city's financial position. Hamburg had refused to become a formal belligerent, and its neutrality made it the primary clearing house for war indemnities and troop payments flowing across northern Europe. The mint was busy for reasons that had little to do with local commerce.

Gaedechens 582 is among the more readily encountered of Hamburg's mid-seventeenth century silver fractions, though pieces from the earlier dates in this run show noticeably more die wear than later strikes.