1 Schreckenberger - John George I

The Schreckenberger denomination takes its name from the Schreckenberg mine near Annaberg in the Erzgebirge, where silver strikes in the late fifteenth century had made Saxony one of the wealthiest territories in the Empire. By John George I's reign, the type was archaic by commercial standards, but electoral Saxony clung to older denominations with characteristic conservatism.

The 1620–1621 dating places this piece at the opening of the Thirty Years' War, a conflict John George entered reluctantly and switched sides during more than once.