1 Thaler - John 'Siegesthaler'

Issued to commemorate Prussia's decisive victory over France in the Franco-Prussian War, this Saxon victory thaler — the name "Siegesthaler" means simply victory thaler — was struck at a moment of acute political tension for the Kingdom of Saxony. Saxony had fought on Prussia's side, but not willingly; the memory of 1866, when Prussian forces occupied Dresden after Sadowa, was barely five years old. The new German Empire proclaimed at Versailles in January 1871 absorbed Saxony into a structure it had little say in shaping.

King Johann, then 71 and in the final years of his reign, was a noted Dante scholar — his Italian translation published under a pseudonym remains respected. The commemorative issue bearing his name was one of the last major Saxon thalers struck before the imperial mark system eliminated state coinage entirely in 1873.