1/4 Thaler - August of Sachsen-Weissenfels

August of Sachsen-Weissenfels was appointed Administrator of Magdeburg in 1638, a Lutheran holding a position technically subordinate to the Catholic archiepiscopal structure — one of the many tortured ecclesiastical compromises produced by the Thirty Years' War. This coin was struck just two years into his administration, while Swedish forces still occupied much of the surrounding territory and Magdeburg itself was still recovering from its catastrophic sack of 1631, in which somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000 inhabitants died.

The Westphalian Peace was still eight years away when this piece left the die.