1 Thaler - August of Sachsen-Weissenfels

August of Saxony administered Magdeburg as its appointed administrator rather than a consecrated archbishop — a Protestant arrangement formalized under the Peace of Augsburg and perpetuated through the Thirty Years' War. In 1640, the war was still grinding toward its conclusion, and Magdeburg itself had been catastrophically sacked by Imperial forces in 1631, an event that killed perhaps 20,000 civilians and left the city largely ash. That this thaler was struck nine years later signals a partial recovery of the mint's operational capacity under Swedish-backed Protestant administration.