15 Kreuzer

The Fugger banking dynasty had long since passed its sixteenth-century peak as creditors to the Habsburgs by the time this piece was struck, but the family retained their minting rights in Babenhausen-Wellenburg well into the later seventeenth century. The 15 Kreuzer denomination itself was a product of the post-Kipper und Wipper inflationary chaos — a denomination that emerged as German territorial authorities attempted to restabilize small-denomination silver coinage after decades of debased emergency issues had eroded public trust.