2 Goldgulden - Gotthard Kettler Wenden, pointy bottom

Gotthard Kettler served as the last Master of the Livonian Order, and these pieces were struck during the Order's death throes — the opening years of the Livonian War, which had begun with Ivan IV's invasion in 1558. The Order was collapsing militarily and diplomatically simultaneously, and Kettler was actively negotiating the secularization that would formally dissolve it in 1561, when he became the first Duke of Courland under Polish-Lithuanian suzerainty.

The "pointy bottom" designation distinguishes this die variety from shield variants catalogued separately under Neumann. Struck across a window of perhaps three years before the issuing authority ceased to exist entirely.