1/4 Thaler - Louis II, Henry XXI, Albert George, Christoph I and Wolf Ernest

The County of Stolberg's multi-count coinages of the sixteenth century reflect the Harz region's persistent practice of joint rule among collateral lines — a legal inheritance structure that kept the county fragmented among brothers and cousins well into the early modern period. By 1572, the five co-rulers named on this piece governed different branches of the Stolberg-Wernigerode and Stolberg-Stolberg divisions, a partition formalized earlier in the century that nonetheless required unified coinage for practical commerce.

Friederich 260 places this among a small documented run. The Harz silver mines underpinned the county's minting rights at a moment when those rights were increasingly contested by territorial neighbors.