1 Ducat - Frederik III

Frederik III came to the Danish throne in 1648 under duress — the nobility had forced him to sign a coronation charter stripping the monarchy of nearly all autonomous power before they would recognize him. The ducats struck in the opening years of his reign were produced while that humiliation was still fresh. Within a decade he would engineer a complete reversal, using the crisis of the Swedish wars to abolish the charter entirely and establish absolute hereditary monarchy in 1660, one of the most dramatic reversals of aristocratic power in northern European history.

The .979 fineness places these pieces at the high end of contemporary European ducat standards, consistent with Danish mint practice of the period.