1 Pfennig

Rostock's municipal coinage survived well into the seventeenth century largely because the city jealously guarded its privileges as a Hanseatic member, resisting absorption into ducal Mecklenburg's monetary system at every turn. These small copper pieces filled a gap that imperial coinage consistently failed to address at the lowest transaction level.

The forty-four year span of this type reflects chronic reluctance to retool dies rather than any particular monetary stability — Rostock's finances were badly strained by Swedish occupation costs and postwar reconstruction following the Thirty Years' War.