1/8 Taler - Rudolph August and Anthony Ulrich Death

Rudolph August, the elder of the two co-rulers, died in January 1704 — making this 1695 issue a memorial struck nearly a decade before his actual death. These anticipatory "death medal" coinages, produced for court distribution and dynastic commemoration rather than circulation, were not unusual in the German territorial tradition, where the line between commemorative coinage and medallic issue was routinely blurred. Anthony Ulrich would outlive his brother by over a decade, dying in 1714 after converting to Catholicism — a move that scandalized Protestant Brunswick.