Henry I ruled Lower Bavaria following the 1255 partition of the Duchy of Bavaria between the Wittelsbach brothers — the first formal division of Wittelsbách holdings, which would be subdivided repeatedly over the following century into an increasingly fragmented patchwork of competing dynastic lines. This pfennig belongs to that initial generation of distinctly Lower Bavarian coinage, minted independently from the Upper Bavarian issues of Henry's brother Ludwig II.
The thin, broad fabric characteristic of these bracteate-adjacent south German pfennigs made them notoriously fragile in circulation. Survivors without cracks or edge splits are genuinely uncommon.
Henry I ruled Lower Bavaria following the 1255 partition of the Duchy of Bavaria between the Wittelsbach brothers — the first formal division of Wittelsbách holdings, which would be subdivided repeatedly over the following century into an increasingly fragmented patchwork of competing dynastic lines. This pfennig belongs to that initial generation of distinctly Lower Bavarian coinage, minted independently from the Upper Bavarian issues of Henry's brother Ludwig II.
The thin, broad fabric characteristic of these bracteate-adjacent south German pfennigs made them notoriously fragile in circulation. Survivors without cracks or edge splits are genuinely uncommon.