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1 Groschen - Wolfgang William
| Issuer | Ravensberg, County of |
|---|---|
| Year | 1629-1638 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 1 Groschen = 1⁄24 Thaler |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Central field occupied by a crowned eight-fold quartered coat of arms bearing the inescutcheon of the Palatinate of the Rhine (Pfalz), surmounted by an elaborate princely crown. The composite shield displays the heraldic devices of the issuer's multiple territorial claims, rendered in the angular engraving style typical of early seventeenth-century German hammered coinage. A circular legend in Latin surrounds the arms, separated from the shield by a beaded inner border. The lettering abbreviates the full titles of Count Wolfgang William. |
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| Reverse script | Latin |
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| Additional information |
Wolfgang William of Neuburg held Ravensberg as an inherited possession through his mother, Maria of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, whose dynasty's extinction in 1609 triggered the Jülich-Cleves succession crisis — one of the more combustible territorial disputes of the early Thirty Years' War period. His right to coin in Ravensberg was perpetually contested, and these groschen were struck across nearly a decade of overlapping dynastic, confessional, and military pressure from Brandenburg, which ultimately absorbed the county in 1666.
The billon fineness reflects the broader debasement common to small German territorial coinages during the Kipper- und Wipperzeit's long aftermath.