10 Ducats - Albert of Wallenstein

Albrecht von Wallenstein struck these large gold multiples from the Duchy of Friedland — a territory the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II had essentially invented for him as payment for his extraordinary military services during the Thirty Years' War. By 1628, Wallenstein commanded an army of nearly 100,000 men, largely self-financed, and operated his duchy as a near-sovereign economic engine. Issuing high-denomination gold coinage was a calculated assertion of that quasi-independent status.

Four years later, Ferdinand dismissed him under pressure from the Imperial princes who feared exactly this kind of ambition. Wallenstein was assassinated in Eger in February 1634.