1⁄48 Thaler - Frederick August I

Frederick August I — better known as Augustus the Strong — funded his notoriously extravagant court at Dresden largely through the Saxon mining revenues that these small-denomination coins helped circulate. His conversion to Catholicism in 1697, a prerequisite for his election as King of Poland, made him deeply unpopular among his Lutheran Saxon subjects, and the tension between his Polish ambitions and Saxon fiscal realities ran throughout this entire issue's production span.

The 1/48 Thaler denomination, a Groschen equivalent, bore the brunt of everyday commerce while Augustus drained the treasury on porcelain, mistresses, and the Northern War.