12 Mariengroschen - Francis Arnold of Wolff-Metternich

Francis Arnold of Wolff-Metternich ruled the Bishopric of Münster from 1707 until his death in 1718, a tenure spent largely navigating the aftermath of the War of Spanish Succession and managing the considerable debts his predecessor Christoph Bernhard von Galen had accumulated through decades of military adventurism. The 12 Mariengroschen denomination was a workhorse of northern German ecclesiastical coinage, calibrated to the regional reckoning of the Mariengroschen rather than the imperial Groschen system.

Münster's mint output in this period was modest and closely tied to chapter finances. Schulze 173 is among the less frequently encountered die pairings of this type.