1 Pfennig - Christian I, August, Rudolph, Louis and John Casimir

Issued during the Kipper- und Wipperzeit — the catastrophic currency debasement crisis that swept the Holy Roman Empire between roughly 1619 and 1623 — this small copper piece reflects the monetary chaos that accompanied the opening years of the Thirty Years' War. Anhalt, already devastated by the post-White Mountain fallout that stripped the Calvinist princes of their electoral dignity, was among dozens of minor states flooding circulation with debased small coinage. The five co-ruling princes named on this issue governed a territory fractured by inheritance law into near-incoherence.