1 Gulden - Philip August

Hessen-Homburg was among the smallest sovereign states in the German Confederation, covering barely 275 square kilometers with a population that never exceeded 25,000. Its very existence as a coin-issuing authority was something of an anachronism by the 1840s, sustained largely by the protections of the Confederation's political structure rather than any economic logic. Philip August ruled from 1839 until his death in 1846, and his reign produced this gulden under the South German monetary convention of 1837, which standardized the 24½-gulden-per-Cologne-mark silver standard across participating states.