1 Stüber

Dortmund struck this issue in 1631 at the height of the Thirty Years' War, when the city — nominally an Imperial Free City — was caught between Swedish, Imperial, and Spanish military movements through Westphalia. Local municipal coinage of this period served a practical function: with trade disrupted and foreign coin of uncertain value flooding the region, cities increasingly relied on their own small-denomination silver to keep internal commerce functional. Dortmund's monetary autonomy was already eroding; within decades the city would lose effective independence entirely.