1/2 Thaler - Louis Frederick Schützenhalbtaler

Montbéliard occupied an anomalous position in early seventeenth-century Europe — a German-speaking Lutheran enclave embedded in French territory, ruled by the Württemberg dynasty as a county of the Holy Roman Empire. Louis Frederick issued this half thaler in 1612 as a Schützenmünze, a prize or commemorative piece tied to a shooting festival, a tradition common to Swiss and southwestern German civic culture but relatively rare among the county's surviving coinage.

Binder catalogued only a handful of die combinations for this type. The 1612 date makes it one of Louis Frederick's earlier issues; he had held the county since 1608.