1 Thaler - Christian Frederick Charles Alexander

Christian Frederick Charles Alexander — Karl Alexander to his subjects — ruled Brandenburg-Bayreuth from 1757 until his death in 1791, the last Hohenzollern margrave to actually govern the territory. He was a capable if financially strained administrator, perpetually squeezed between the costs of maintaining a baroque court at Bayreuth and the fiscal demands placed on smaller German principalities within the Holy Roman Empire. The 1779 date places this thaler squarely in that period of managed decline, roughly a decade before he negotiated the reversion of the margraviate to the Prussian crown — a transaction completed in 1791, the year he died.

KM#262 is not a rare type, but surviving examples in problem-free condition are less common than mintage alone would suggest, partly owing to the coin's active use in regional trade along the Main and Regnitz corridors.