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.
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.