1/2 Thaler - John George I Centenary of the Reformation

The 1617 centenary fell exactly one hundred years after Luther's posting of the Ninety-Five Theses, and Saxony had every political reason to celebrate loudly. John George I — a staunch Lutheran and one of the most powerful Protestant princes in the Empire — commissioned a sweeping series of commemorative issues across multiple denominations, of which this half thaler is among the more commonly encountered survivors. The Elector was simultaneously consolidating his position ahead of the tensions that would, just a year later, detonate into the Thirty Years' War.

Cl/Kahnt 249a distinguishes this from closely related dies within the same commemorative emission.