Simon VII ruled Lippe through the opening years of the Thirty Years' War, and the fractional thaler issues of 1621 reflect the monetary chaos that followed the Kipper- und Wipperzeit — a debasement crisis so destabilizing that mints across the Holy Roman Empire competed to shave metal from circulating coinage before the next city caught on. Lippe was not immune. The 1/21 thaler denomination itself is a product of that moment: an attempt to align local coinage with the debased Kipper-era reckoning of 21 groschen to the thaler rather than the traditional 24.
Simon VII ruled Lippe through the opening years of the Thirty Years' War, and the fractional thaler issues of 1621 reflect the monetary chaos that followed the Kipper- und Wipperzeit — a debasement crisis so destabilizing that mints across the Holy Roman Empire competed to shave metal from circulating coinage before the next city caught on. Lippe was not immune. The 1/21 thaler denomination itself is a product of that moment: an attempt to align local coinage with the debased Kipper-era reckoning of 21 groschen to the thaler rather than the traditional 24.