12 Mariengroschen

Goslar's coinage rights derived from its status as an Imperial Free City, a privilege fiercely defended across centuries of encroachment by the Dukes of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, who coveted both the city and its proximity to the silver-rich Rammelsberg mines. By 1739, those mines — worked continuously since at least the tenth century — were in serious decline, and the city's fiscal position had deteriorated accordingly. The Mariengroschen denomination itself was a north German convention, its name referencing the Virgin Mary and rooted in late medieval Hanover-area monetary tradition.