2 Kreuzers - Maximilian I

Maximilian I received the Electoral dignity in 1623 as direct reward for his military support of the Habsburg cause in the opening phase of the Thirty Years' War — the transfer of the Palatine Electorate to Bavaria being one of the conflict's most consequential political transactions. These small silver pieces circulated through a Bavaria simultaneously enriched by war spoils and ravaged by the armies crossing it. The extended date range reflects continuous production through the war's worst decades, when reliable small-denomination coinage was perpetually in demand and perpetually debased across the German states.