Regensburg's multiple-ducat issues of this period were prestige strikes — not circulation currency, but gifts, diplomatic presentations, and displays of civic authority at a moment when the city's independence was increasingly nominal. As the seat of the Immerwährender Reichstag, the perpetual imperial diet that had sat there since 1663, Regensburg retained just enough constitutional standing to issue its own coinage, though actual political power had long since drained away to the larger territorial princes. The diet itself had become something of a diplomatic theater by the 1770s.
At 35 grams of near-pure gold, pieces like this required exceptional die preparation and were likely struck more than once under the screw press.
Regensburg's multiple-ducat issues of this period were prestige strikes — not circulation currency, but gifts, diplomatic presentations, and displays of civic authority at a moment when the city's independence was increasingly nominal. As the seat of the Immerwährender Reichstag, the perpetual imperial diet that had sat there since 1663, Regensburg retained just enough constitutional standing to issue its own coinage, though actual political power had long since drained away to the larger territorial princes. The diet itself had become something of a diplomatic theater by the 1770s.
At 35 grams of near-pure gold, pieces like this required exceptional die preparation and were likely struck more than once under the screw press.