1 Pfennig - Albert de Brandebourg

Albert of Brandenburg-Ansbach, the last Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights to rule Prussia, had secularized the monastic state in 1525 on Luther's personal advice — a move that transformed a crusading order's territory into the first Protestant duchy in the Holy Roman Empire. By the time these pfennigs were struck, Albert's finances were in chronic disorder, fueled by his patronage of Königsberg University and a court riddled with debt. Billon coinage of this weight was close to the floor of practical minting, the silver content negligible.