1 Mariengroschen - William VI

William VI ruled Hesse-Cassel during the immediate aftermath of the Thirty Years' War, a period when the landgraviate's finances were severely strained by decades of military occupation, requisitioning, and population loss. The Mariengroschen — a north German denomination named for the Virgin Mary — had circulated across the region since the late medieval period, and its continued production under William signals an effort to restore normalcy to local commerce in a territory still recovering from catastrophic disruption. William died in 1663 at just 35, leaving a young heir, which meant this short-lived issue captures one of the more turbulent interregnums in Hessian monetary history.