1 Goldgulden - John III

John III of Saxony held the archbishopric of Bremen from 1497 until his death in 1511, an appointment that reflected the broader Wettin dynastic strategy of accumulating ecclesiastical offices across northern Germany. Bremen's right to strike gold coinage was a jealously guarded privilege, and goldgulden from this see are genuinely scarce — episcopal mints in the Lower Saxon circle struck gold infrequently, and surviving examples suggest production runs were small even by contemporary standards.

Fr#428 places this issue within the Rhine goldgulden tradition, the pan-German gold standard of the late fifteenth century enforced by the Electoral Rhenish mint treaty of 1386.