1/4 Thaler - John George I, Peter Ernest I and John Hoyer III

Mansfeld-Eisleben was administered jointly by multiple comital lines throughout the sixteenth century, a fractious arrangement that produced an unusual proliferation of multi-named coinage as each branch insisted on representation in the legends. The three counts named here — John George I, Peter Ernest I, and John Hoyer III — governed during a period when the Mansfeld copper mines, once among the most productive in the Holy Roman Empire, were entering a prolonged financial crisis that would eventually force the county into imperial administration by 1570. Coinage from this exact window reflects an authority trying to project stability it no longer possessed.