15 Kreuzers - Johann Ernst von Thun hunting

Johann Ernst von Thun und Hohenstein served as Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg from 1687 until his death in 1709, and his tenure coincided with the rebuilding of the city following the devastating fire of 1818 — no, the great fire was 1818 in the later period; Salzburg's major constructive phase under Thun was architectural rather than disaster-driven. The hunting kreuzers issued under his authority belong to a well-documented series of Salzburg silver coinage that used the chase as a motif tied to princely privilege.

Johann Ernst von Thun und Hohenstein was appointed Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg in 1687, just two years before this piece was struck. The hunting thaler and fractional series issued under his name reflect the Salzburg archbishops' exercise of the imperial mint privilege, a right jealously maintained by successive prince-bishops as an assertion of their status within the Holy Roman Empire's ecclesiastical hierarchy.