1 Pfennig

1622 placed Nuremberg at the epicenter of the Kipper- und Wipperzeit — the "clipping and see-sawing" inflation crisis that devastated the Holy Roman Empire's small change between roughly 1619 and 1623. Municipal authorities across the Empire debased silver coinage so aggressively that copper pfennigs like this one became the only reliable low-denomination tender many urban residents would accept. Nuremberg's city council fought to maintain monetary credibility longer than most, but the pressures of the Thirty Years' War made that position increasingly untenable.

KM#35a distinguishes this copper striking from related types in the sequence, reflecting mid-crisis adjustments to metal and module.