1 Thaler - Charles Theodor

Charles Theodor's hold on Bavaria was always uneasy. He inherited the Electorate in 1777 under the Treaty of Pavia's succession provisions, deeply unpopular with Bavarians who viewed him as a foreign Palatinate prince with no real attachment to their territory. His reign immediately triggered the War of the Bavarian Succession — Prussia and Austria spent 1778–79 maneuvering over whether he would cede large portions of Bavaria to Joseph II, which he very nearly did. By 1792, the year of this thaler, French revolutionary armies were pushing into the Rhineland and dismantling the very Palatinate territories where Charles Theodor's dynastic identity was rooted.