1 Scherf

Salzwedel, a Hanseatic town straddling the Old and New settlement halves on the Jeetze river, issued these tiny bracteate-style pfennigs under municipal authority during a period when the Altmark region was contested between Brandenburg and local noble interests. At 0.14g, the Scherf was the smallest practical denomination in northern German civic coinage — half a pfennig by value — and surviving examples are frequently found bent or clipped, evidence of hard daily use rather than hoarding.