1 Pfennig - George William

Schaumburg-Lippe was among the smallest sovereign states in the German Confederation, with a population that never exceeded roughly 30,000 during the nineteenth century. It continued issuing its own coinage well into the 1860s despite the obvious economic absurdity of maintaining an independent currency for a territory smaller than many Prussian counties. George William ruled from 1807 to 1860, and these copper pfennigs from the final years of his reign were rendered obsolete within a decade by the monetary unification that followed the North German Confederation's formation in 1866.