1 Thaler - John Ernest VIII

John Ernest VIII ruled Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld for less than three years, from 1720 until his death in 1729 — a short reign that kept his coinage issues limited and his thalers correspondingly scarce on the market today. The duchy itself was one of the more financially strained branches of the Ernestine Wettin line, having been carved out of repeated territorial partitions that left each successor state with diminished resources and perpetual debt inherited from the Thirty Years' War's long economic shadow.