2 Grote

Bremen's civic coinage operated with unusual independence well into the eighteenth century, the city's Senate jealously guarding its mint rights against both imperial pressure and the encroachments of neighboring Hanover. The 2 Grote denomination was a practical workhorse of local exchange, the Grote itself being a north German unit with roots in the medieval groschen tradition — the name a Low German corruption of the same.

KM#161 is associated with the magistrate-supervised output of Bremen's mint during a period when the city was navigating the commercial disruptions of the Great Northern War playing out across the Baltic trading networks on which its merchant class depended.