12 Kreuzer - Adolphus Kipper

The Kipper- und Wipperzeit of 1619–1623 was a currency catastrophe deliberately engineered by dozens of small German states debasing their coinage to exploit arbitrage between mint standards, flooding the Empire with underweight billon while hoarding full-weight silver. Bentheim-Tecklenburg-Rheda was among the minor Westphalian counties that participated aggressively in this race to the bottom. Count Adolphus — formally Adolf Burchard — used the window to extract maximum seigniorage before the scheme collapsed and Imperial Circle authorities cracked down on offending mints around 1622–1623.

Kennepohl's documentation of this type remains the definitive reference for the Bentheim series; KM#20 follows his attribution closely.