1 Heller - John Gottfried of Aschhausen

John Gottfried von Aschhausen died in 1622, the same year this coin was struck, leaving his successor Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn's long shadow still over the diocese. The Bishopric of Würzburg was minting small silver fractions in this period under severe pressure from the Kipper und Wipper crisis — the currency debasement wave that swept the Holy Roman Empire between roughly 1619 and 1623, during which scores of minor ecclesiastical and secular authorities flooded circulation with underweight, debased coinage to exploit fixed exchange rates before the system collapsed.

A silver Heller from this moment is worth scrutinizing against published weight standards for the type.