1⁄24 Thaler - Frederick William

Frederick William — the "Great Elector" — came to power in 1640 inheriting a Brandenburg ravaged by thirty years of war, with competing Swedish and Imperial garrisons still occupying his own territory. The coinage reforms he pursued through the 1650s were partly administrative necessity: the Westphalian settlement of 1648 left his fiscal apparatus in ruins, and small-denomination silver was badly needed to restart local commerce. The 1/24 Thaler denomination corresponds to the Groschen standard, pegged to the Reichsthaler at 24 units.

Production across this decade drew on several mints operating under shifting contracts.