1/2 Thaler - Constantine

Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rochefort was one of the more obscure of the Franconian imperial counties — a territory so fragmented by the late eighteenth century that its coinage served more as a display of comital privilege than any practical monetary function. The right to strike silver coinage was jealously maintained by such minor houses precisely because it was one of the few remaining markers of imperial immediacy under the Holy Roman constitution.

Constantine, who succeeded to the Rochefort line in 1757, struck relatively few large silver pieces during his tenure. By 1789 the county was months away from the upheavals that would ultimately extinguish the coining rights of virtually every minor German lordship.