1 Thaler

Bremen struck thalers throughout the Thirty Years' War essentially to assert and maintain its status as a free imperial city — coinage being one of the few unambiguous expressions of autonomous authority available to a city under constant political pressure. By 1635, the war had devastated much of the surrounding region; Swedish forces had held Bremen's hinterland since the early 1630s, and the city itself was navigating an extraordinarily delicate neutrality.

The Jungk 474 attribution places this among a small cluster of die varieties from that year. Survivors in collectible condition are scarce, partly because Bremen's thalers from this decade circulated hard across war-torn northern trade routes.