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1 Thaler - Joachim II Hector
| Issuer | Brandenburg, Margraviate of |
|---|---|
| Year | 1551 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | 40 mm |
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| Obverse description | Half-length effigy of Margrave Joachim II Hector facing right, wearing an ornate plumed hat and richly decorated mantle with armorial shield at truncation, holding a scepter in his right hand and a sword in his left. The figure is rendered in the Renaissance style typical of mid-sixteenth-century German coinage, with fine detail in the drapery and regalia. The legend encircles the portrait within a beaded inner border. |
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| Obverse lettering | IOCHIM II D G MARCHIO BRANDEMB ELECT 1551 |
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| Additional information |
Joachim II Hector converted Brandenburg to Lutheranism in 1539, a calculated political move that allowed him to secularize church properties and dramatically expand electoral revenues. Those revenues funded an aggressive coinage program throughout the 1540s and 1550s, of which this thaler is a product. He also mortgaged Brandenburg's finances so severely through court expenditure and military commitments that his son Johann Georg inherited a territory effectively bankrupt.
The Bahrfeldt reference 386 places this among a well-documented sequence, but survivors with full peripheral legends and unclipped flans remain genuinely scarce given the heavy commercial use thalers saw along the Oder trade routes.