1 Ducat - Maximilian I Joseph

Maximilian I Joseph had died in October 1825, meaning ducats bearing his name and the later dates of this short run were struck in the final months of a reign that had transformed Bavaria from an electorate into a kingdom — a title Napoleon granted in 1806 as reward for Bavarian alliance. The ducat itself was already an anachronism by this point, a gold trade coin whose form had changed little since the medieval Venetian standard, kept in production largely for commercial transactions that preferred the internationally recognized denomination over domestic currency.