1 Pfennig

Erfurt's civic coinage of this period reflects the city's unusual dual status — nominally under the Archbishop of Mainz yet functionally self-governing through its merchant oligarchy, which jealously guarded minting rights as a mark of practical independence. The Leitzmann 423 type belongs to the final decade before Erfurt's financial autonomy was progressively curtailed in the early sixteenth century.

At half a gram of silver, these were working coins ground down through daily transactions in one of central Germany's busiest trading centers. Survivors with intact surfaces are the exception.