1 Ducat - August

August the Younger became Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel in 1635 at the age of 71, inheriting a territory devastated by nearly two decades of the Thirty Years' War. This ducat was struck just three years into his reign, when much of Lower Saxony remained occupied or contested. August was one of the great bibliophiles of the century — his library at Wolfenbüttel would eventually number over 135,000 volumes — but the immediate priority in 1638 was reasserting ducal authority through coinage in a region where circulating currency had been badly disrupted by military requisition and Swedish occupation.