1 Schilling - Johannes VI Bey Pointy shields with retrograde squiggles

The Bishopric of Dorpat — present-day Tartu in Estonia — was by 1543 in acute political and military decline, squeezed between the Livonian Order and the growing pressure of Muscovite expansion that would culminate in Ivan the Terrible's invasion of 1558. Johannes VI, the last bishop to strike coinage with any regularity, issued schillings of progressively debased billon as the diocese's finances deteriorated. The "retrograde squiggles" designation in Haljak reflects genuine die-cutting anomalies — likely the work of a local engraver of limited training rather than any intentional variation.