1 Kreuzer - Bernhard II

Saxe-Meiningen was one of the smaller Ernestine duchies carved from the repeated subdivision of Saxon territories, and by 1854 its coinage existed largely as a practical necessity rather than a political statement. Bernhard II had inherited a duchy burdened by debt and was already navigating the constitutional pressures that would define the German states in the decade before unification. Small copper kreuzer issues like this one circulated hard in local markets and rarely survived intact.