100 Euros Wartburg

Issued to mark the 900th anniversary of Wartburg Castle, this coin belongs to a German gold commemorative program that has quietly become one of the more coherent numismatic series of the post-reunification period. The castle itself sits in Thuringia and carries an almost implausible density of historical significance — Martin Luther translated the New Testament into German there while in hiding from 1521 to 1522, and it later inspired the Burschenschaft student movement that used it as a rally point in 1817.

The .999 finesse and 15.55g weight place it in the half-ounce class, a format the German federal mint adopted for this series rather than the full-ounce standard used by bullion issues.