1/2 Thaler - Joseph Christian

Joseph Christian of Saxe-Zerbst held the see of Breslau from 1456 — this is not that Joseph Christian. The bishopric's late 18th-century issues came under mounting pressure from Prussian administrative encroachment following the Silesian Wars, which had stripped the region from Habsburg control decades earlier. Breslau's ecclesiastical mint continued striking in the bishop's name, but Frederick the Great's annexation had already made such issues something of a jurisdictional anachronism within Prussian Silesia.

KM#229 is a scarce type; the bishopric's coinage authority was effectively extinguished shortly after this issue.