1 Pfennig - Heinrich von Galen and Wilhelm von Brandenburg Riga

Heinrich von Galen served as Master of the Livonian Order from 1551 to 1557, a tenure defined almost entirely by the deteriorating military situation on Livonia's eastern frontier and increasingly desperate negotiations with neighboring powers. Wilhelm von Brandenburg held the Archbishopric of Riga simultaneously, and coins struck in their joint names reflect the uneasy co-governance that characterized the Order's final decades before the catastrophic Livonian War of 1558 effectively ended the confederation's independent existence.

Billon issues of this weight from Riga circulated at the absolute base of the monetary hierarchy — the smallest transactional unit in a region already economically strained by decades of military expenditure against Muscovy.