1 Thaler - Christian Frederick Charles Alexander

Christian Frederick Charles Alexander — the last Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach — was seventeen years old in 1757, the year this thaler was struck. The Seven Years' War had just engulfed Europe, and Ansbach, as a Hohenzollern territory, found itself pulled toward Prussia's orbit even as French and Imperial forces swept through neighboring Franconia. The Margraviate's financial position was precarious throughout the conflict.

Alexander would eventually sell the entire territory outright to Prussia in 1791, abdicating in exchange for a pension and retiring to England with his mistress Lady Craven. The 1757 date places this piece early in a reign that lasted three and a half decades before the Margraviate simply ceased to exist.