1 Pfennig - Frederick William II

Saxe-Altenburg was partitioned and re-partitioned repeatedly throughout the seventeenth century, and Frederick William II ruled a duchy whose territorial coherence was perpetually uncertain — the line died out entirely in 1672, reverting its lands to Saxe-Gotha. Small silver pfennigs of this period served the grinding daily commerce of a minor German principality still economically devastated by the Thirty Years' War, which had ended only two years before this series began. At 0.23 g, the silver content was negligible even by contemporary standards.