Charles II's reign in Brunswick was one of the most turbulent of any German minor state in the nineteenth century. Despised for his erratic behavior and rumored mental instability, he was deposed by his own subjects in a popular uprising in September 1830 — one of several German revolts ignited by the July Revolution in France that same year. His palace was burned. This small billon issue was struck just five years before that collapse, in a duchy already politically fragile.
The .375 fineness places it at the lower end of billon coinage, a silver content reflecting Brunswick's constrained fiscal position in the post-Napoleonic reorganization of the German states.
Charles II's reign in Brunswick was one of the most turbulent of any German minor state in the nineteenth century. Despised for his erratic behavior and rumored mental instability, he was deposed by his own subjects in a popular uprising in September 1830 — one of several German revolts ignited by the July Revolution in France that same year. His palace was burned. This small billon issue was struck just five years before that collapse, in a duchy already politically fragile.
The .375 fineness places it at the lower end of billon coinage, a silver content reflecting Brunswick's constrained fiscal position in the post-Napoleonic reorganization of the German states.