1 Goldgulden - Maximilian I Frankfurt mint

Maximilian I spent much of his reign perpetually short of money, funding wars against France, the Ottomans, and the Swiss Confederation simultaneously while his tax revenues lagged badly behind his ambitions. The Frankfurt mint produced these gulden under imperial authority during the years when Maximilian was negotiating the Habsburg succession that would eventually hand Charles V an empire spanning two continents — deals that required exactly this kind of liquid gold to cement.

Fr#941 is among the scarcer Maximilian gold issues, Frankfurt having struck far fewer gulden than the Tyrolean or Netherlandish mints favored by the emperor.