1 Pfennig Kipper

Kipper und Wipper — "tipper and see-saw" — describes the currency crisis that convulsed the Holy Roman Empire between roughly 1619 and 1623, when municipal and princely mints systematically debased coinage to exploit fixed exchange rates, then dumped the degraded pieces into neighboring territories before the fraud was detected. Neuruppin's copper pfennig of 1622 belongs to the flood of emergency small change issued as silver disappeared from circulation entirely, hoarded or melted as the debasement accelerated.

The crisis coincided almost exactly with the opening phase of the Thirty Years' War, and the resulting monetary chaos contributed to food riots and wage collapses across Brandenburg and Pomerania. Neuruppin itself was a modest Brandenburg town — its issuing authority here reflects how far down the municipal hierarchy the minting impulse reached during the Kipper years.