12 Pfennig - Ernest III Kipper

Kipper und Wipper — the debasement crisis that convulsed the Holy Roman Empire from roughly 1619 to 1623 — produced exactly this kind of issue. Minor German territories exploited the absence of centralized monetary enforcement by minting vast quantities of debased coins nominally valued above their metal content, then flooding neighboring jurisdictions with them before the fraud became apparent. Holstein-Schaumburg-Pinneberg, a small county with limited resources, participated actively. Ernest III used the profits to shore up finances during the opening years of the Thirty Years' War.