1 Thaler - John of Küstrin

John of Küstrin — formally Margrave Johann of Brandenburg-Küstrin — was one of the few Hohenzollern rulers to openly embrace Lutheranism against the explicit wishes of his cousin, Elector Joachim II of Brandenburg. The Margraviate of Küstrin was a separate appanage carved from Brandenburg in 1535, and John wasted little time asserting its independence through coinage. These thalers of 1545–46 fall squarely within the period of John's most aggressive administrative consolidation, shortly before the Schmalkaldic War upended Protestant politics across the Holy Roman Empire.