1 Ferding - Hermann II Wesel Reverse key up

The Bishopric of Dorpat — a prince-bishopric of the Holy Roman Empire centered on present-day Tartu in Estonia — issued coinage under increasingly desperate circumstances during Hermann II's episcopate. By the early 1550s, the entire Livonian Order was fracturing under the pressure of Russian territorial ambitions, and Dorpat itself would fall to Ivan the Terrible's forces in 1558, effectively ending the bishopric's existence within three years of this coin's latest possible minting date.

The "key up" reverse variety distinguishes this piece from the more common key-down orientation within the Haljak sequence — a die distinction that collectors of Livonian coinage track carefully, as the two variants do not appear with equal frequency in surviving examples.