10 Ducats

Nuremberg's multiple-ducat issues of the mid-seventeenth century were struck not for circulation but for presentation — gifts to Holy Roman Emperors, visiting dignitaries, and diplomatic counterparts at a moment when the city was navigating the brutal final years of the Thirty Years' War. By 1641, Nuremberg had already hosted the ill-fated 1649 peace congress site negotiations and was feeding thousands of war refugees within its walls. These pieces functioned as bullion diplomacy, their weight in high-fineness gold speaking where civic autonomy could not.

KM#97 is among the heavier multiples from this free city's output. Surviving examples almost exclusively appear in institutional collections.