1 Thaler - John Frederick, Henry and John Ernest

Struck during a moment of acute dynastic tension, this thaler names three co-rulers of the Ernestinian branch of the Wettin dynasty — John Frederick the Magnanimous as Elector, alongside his cousins Henry and John Ernest of the Coburg line. The arrangement was a survival of the Wettin practice of joint governance, already straining under the weight of competing ambitions and the mounting pressures of the Schmalkaldic League, of which John Frederick was a principal architect and leader.

Within eight years of this coin's minting, John Frederick would lose both the electoral dignity and his freedom at the Battle of Mühlberg, 1547.