1 Pfennig - Augustus

Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel in 1636 was deep inside the Thirty Years' War — Swedish, Imperial, and various German forces had been marching through Lower Saxony for years, disrupting trade and draining the treasury. Small billon pfennigs of this type were emergency-grade fiduciary coinage, their silver content negligible, struck primarily to keep petty transactions functioning when better money was being hoarded or melted. Augustus the Younger, who had ruled since 1635, was a serious bibliophile more than a military figure; his court at Wolfenbüttel would later house one of Europe's great libraries.