1/2 Thaler - John William

Saxe-Jena was among the most short-lived of the Ernestine Saxon partition duchies, created in 1672 when Duke Bernhard II received Jena and its surrounding territories. John William ruled this pocket duchy for less than three decades before the line extinguished entirely upon his death in 1690 — the year before this coin was struck, which almost certainly places it among posthumous or transitional issues produced as the duchy reverted to Saxe-Eisenach. Coins from Saxe-Jena are scarce precisely because the minting period was so compressed.