1 Groschen - Frederick William II Death of Magdalena Sibylla

Magdalena Sibylla of Saxe-Weissenfels died in 1668, and her husband Frederick William II of Saxe-Altenburg followed the well-established German Protestant tradition of issuing memorial coinage — Toten- or Gedenkgroschen — to mark the deaths of ruling family members. These issues served a documentary function within the Ernestine branch of the Wettins, who divided and subdivided Thuringia so relentlessly through the 17th century that Saxe-Altenburg itself had only been reconstituted as a separate duchy in 1603. The line died out with Frederick William II himself in 1672, after which the territory passed to Saxe-Gotha.