1/2 Thaler - Maria

Saxe-Jena was among the most short-lived of the Ernestine Saxon partition duchies, existing only from 1672 until 1690 when the line extinguished with Duke Bernhard II and the territory reverted to Saxe-Weimar. The entire independent coinage of the duchy spans barely two decades, making any survivor from the series scarce by structural necessity rather than accident.

This piece was struck in the name of Maria, the dowager duchess — a fairly uncommon issuing authority for German territorial coinage of the period. Widow's portions in the Ernestine lands occasionally carried their own minting rights, documented in the Gesamthaus arrangements that governed inheritance among the fractured Saxon lines.