1 Pfennig - John Ernest IV

John Ernest IV ruled Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld for only four years, from 1721 until his death in 1729, leaving a thin coinage record. The duchy itself was a product of the repeated Ernestine Saxon partitions — that branch of the Wettin family had divided and subdivided its territories so many times through inheritance that by the early eighteenth century it controlled a patchwork of small, economically marginal holdings. Small copper pfennig issues like this one served local market transactions the silver coinage rarely reached.