1 Scherf

Berlin's 1621 Scherf belongs to the emergency coinage proliferation that swept the Holy Roman Empire during the Kipper- und Wipperzeit — a currency crisis so destabilizing that municipal and petty authorities across German lands debased and clipped coinage on an almost industrial scale to exploit the exchange rate differential between bullion value and face value. Cities like Berlin issued copper fractions partly to fill the vacuum left by hoarded silver and partly to extract whatever seigniorage remained. The crisis peaked around 1621–1622 before collapsing under its own weight when confidence in small denominations evaporated entirely.