Montbéliard's 1622 coinage falls squarely within the monetary chaos of the Kipper- und Wipperzeit, the clipping-and-debasing crisis that swept the Holy Roman Empire in the early years of the Thirty Years' War. Speculators and petty princes alike exploited the breakdown of imperial monetary oversight to flood circulation with underweight silver, then quietly withdrew good coin. Louis Frederick, ruling this small Lutheran enclave wedged between Burgundy and the Franche-Comté, was no exception.
The Neben and Ebner reference disagreement signals a die variation not yet fully resolved in the literature.
Montbéliard's 1622 coinage falls squarely within the monetary chaos of the Kipper- und Wipperzeit, the clipping-and-debasing crisis that swept the Holy Roman Empire in the early years of the Thirty Years' War. Speculators and petty princes alike exploited the breakdown of imperial monetary oversight to flood circulation with underweight silver, then quietly withdrew good coin. Louis Frederick, ruling this small Lutheran enclave wedged between Burgundy and the Franche-Comté, was no exception.
The Neben and Ebner reference disagreement signals a die variation not yet fully resolved in the literature.