1 Groschen - Ernest I

Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld was, by the early nineteenth century, one of the smallest and most financially strained of the Thuringian duchies — Ernest I inherited debts compounded by Napoleonic war indemnities and the forced restructuring of the Ernestine territories. Small billon coins like this groschen were the daily workhorse of a duchy that could not afford to mint in fine silver, hence the unusually low fineness for the denomination.