1 Ducat Bicentenary of the Reformation

The 1717 Reformation bicentenary prompted a wave of commemorative issues across Lutheran German states, and Ulm — a Free Imperial City that had adopted Lutheranism in 1531 — was among those that struck gold ducats for the occasion. The bicentenary fell exactly two hundred years after Luther's posting of the Ninety-Five Theses, and Frederick I of Prussia organized much of the empire-wide commemorative program, though individual cities produced their own dies independently.

Ulm lost its status as a Free Imperial City less than a century later, absorbed into Württemberg in 1803 during the Napoleonic reorganization of German territories. Issues like this ducat are among the last numismatic chapters of its independent civic identity.