1/2 Thaler - Charles III Joseph of Lorraine

Charles III Joseph of Lorraine was appointed Prince-Bishop of Olomouc in 1695 at the age of fourteen — a purely political appointment engineered by his family's alliance with the Habsburgs. He held the see until his death in 1715, though real ecclesiastical administration fell largely to others. These half thalers were struck across a four-year window during the War of the Spanish Succession, when silver movement across Central Europe was heavily disrupted by military requisitioning and the financial demands of Emperor Joseph I's campaigns on multiple fronts.