Between 1605 and 1619, the duchy of Saxe-Weimar was governed jointly by John Ernest IV and his seven brothers — sons of John III — under a collective administration that was unusual even by the fragmented standards of early seventeenth-century German territorial politics. The arrangement was inherently unstable, and the family line effectively ended with the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, after which several brothers died in the early campaigns of the Thirty Years' War. John Ernest himself was killed at Vlotho in 1622.
The joint-reign coinage naming all eight brothers is consequently short-lived by design. Fr#3014 places this among the rarer Ernestine branch gold issues.
Between 1605 and 1619, the duchy of Saxe-Weimar was governed jointly by John Ernest IV and his seven brothers — sons of John III — under a collective administration that was unusual even by the fragmented standards of early seventeenth-century German territorial politics. The arrangement was inherently unstable, and the family line effectively ended with the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, after which several brothers died in the early campaigns of the Thirty Years' War. John Ernest himself was killed at Vlotho in 1622.
The joint-reign coinage naming all eight brothers is consequently short-lived by design. Fr#3014 places this among the rarer Ernestine branch gold issues.