1 Pfennig - John George IV

John George IV's reign lasted barely two years — he succeeded his father in 1691 and was dead by April 1694, reportedly of smallpox contracted from his mistress Magdalena Sibylla von Neidschutz, whose influence over him had already scandalized the Saxon court. His coinage output was correspondingly thin, and small billon issues like this pfennig were struck across a truncated window of production. The Albertinian mint at Dresden was managing a debased subsidiary coinage that had plagued Saxony since the Kipper und Wipperzeit debasements of the early seventeenth century never fully resolved themselves at the lower denominations.