16 Gute Groschen

Goslar's civic coinage of the 1670s was minted under increasingly strained circumstances — the city's famous Rammelsberg silver mines, which had sustained local minting for centuries, were in serious decline by this period, with the richest ore deposits largely exhausted. The 16 Gute Groschen denomination itself was a North German accounting convenience, designed to bridge the persistent gap between local reckoning and the Reichstaler standard.

Goslar had lost its status as an Imperial Free City in practice well before this coin was struck, ceding mining rights to Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel in 1552 — meaning the city was minting on borrowed authority and dwindling resources alike.