1 Dreier - Joachim Frederick of Brandenburg

Joachim Frederick administered Magdeburg as Protestant administrator rather than consecrated archbishop — a distinction forced by the Peace of Augsburg's ecclesiastical reservation clause, which barred Lutherans from formally holding Catholic sees. His authority over the archbishopric was perpetually contested by the Catholic chapter and imperial authorities, making his coinage something of a political statement in metal. He would later become Elector of Brandenburg as Joachim Frederick I in 1598.

The Dreier denomination — a three-pfennig piece — was workhorse small change in northern German commerce. Schrötter 382 distinguishes this emission from closely related Brandenburg territorial issues of the same period.