1 Pfennig - Maurice I

Issued during the Kipper- und Wipperzeit — the catastrophic currency debasement crisis that swept the Holy Roman Empire between roughly 1619 and 1623 — this piece is a direct product of one of the worst monetary collapses in European history. Princes, cities, and petty lords across the Empire raced to debase their coinage, melt good silver, and flood circulation with underweight billon and copper-washed issues before the inevitable crash. Hesse-Cassel was no innocent bystander in this scramble.

Maurice I, known as "the Learned," was deposed by his own son William V in 1627, partly due to the financial and political disorder his reign had generated.