1/2 Thaler - Joachim Frederick of Brandenburg

Joachim Frederick of Brandenburg administered Magdeburg as its administrator rather than its archbishop — a deliberate legal fiction maintained because, as a Lutheran, he could not receive Catholic consecration. The arrangement was politically engineered by the Hohenzollern family to extend Brandenburg's influence over this strategically vital ecclesiastical territory on the Elbe. He held the position from 1566, though coinage struck in his name as administrator spans a much narrower window before he became Elector of Brandenburg in 1598.

The Schrötter 301 attribution places this half thaler within a small group of issues tied to the Halle mint, which handled the bulk of Magdeburg's silver coinage during this period.