1 Ducat Coronation

Frankfurt struck coronation ducats for the Habsburg emperors as a matter of civic privilege — the city's status as the traditional seat of imperial elections gave it the right to produce commemorative issues at each coronation. This piece marks the election and coronation of Charles VII, the single non-Habsburg emperor of the eighteenth century, whose selection by the Electoral College while Austria was occupied with the War of the Austrian Succession briefly broke the dynasty's two-century grip on the imperial title.

Charles VII died in January 1745, less than three years into his reign, having never secured effective control of Bavaria against Austrian military pressure.