1 Ducat - Friedrich Casimir Kettler Mitau

Friedrich Casimir Kettler ruled Courland from 1682 until his death in 1698, presiding over what was arguably the duchy's last period of genuine independence before increasing Polish-Lithuanian and Russian pressure rendered the office largely ceremonial. His ducats were struck at Mitau — the Courland capital, now Jelgava in Latvia — and reflect the duchy's determined effort to maintain the trappings of sovereign monetary authority at a moment when that sovereignty was already being quietly eroded. The 1689 date falls squarely within his reign's middle years, a period of relative fiscal stability compared to what his successors would face.