1 Groschen - George William of Brandenburg

Ravensberg's coinage authority was a persistent source of friction throughout the early seventeenth century. When George William inherited the county in 1618 — the same year the Thirty Years' War ignited — Brandenburg's control over Ravensberg was still legally contested by Neuburg, a dispute that wouldn't be settled until the Treaty of Xanten formalized the partition years earlier in 1614. This groschen was struck in that first year of his rule, before the war's economic devastation pushed debased emergency coinages across the region and made issues of this weight and fineness increasingly difficult to sustain.