1 Vereinstaler - Frederick Günther

Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt was one of the smallest sovereign states in the German Confederation, covering barely 940 square kilometers with a population under 70,000. Frederick Günther ruled for over six decades — from 1807 until his death in 1867 — making him one of the longest-reigning German princes of the nineteenth century. The Vereinstaler itself was the product of the Dresden Mint Convention of 1838, which brought the northern and southern German monetary systems into rough alignment years before political unification forced the issue entirely.

At the time of this striking, Frederick Günther was in his late seventies. Coins from the final years of such minor principalities carry an almost administrative finality to them.